05.07.2022 - 10.07.2022
& Fall 2022 Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
Video by Silvia Weidenbach & Jon Emmony
What seemed like science fiction until recently has now become reality. Technology makes it possible to see and experience the world in a completely new way. Information is tailored to our interests via complex algorithms. With the advent of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), ownership of artworks is shifting away from traditional systems into a new realm of anonymity via the blockchain. Artificial intelligence (AI) is common to all these forms of existence.
In INFINITE LOOP, Silvia Weidenbach and Jon Emmony ask how AI can support their creative work and what new kinds of collaboration emerge in the process. Specifically, they fed an artificial intelligence with images of historical finger rings from over 3,000 years of human history. These include images of Greek, Roman and Etruscan jewellery from the Staatliche Antikensammlungen in Munich, images of objects from the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg and the Alice and Louis Koch Collection in the Swiss National Museum in Zurich. These ring images convey the wishes, dreams and realities of their creators at the time. The AI learns from these pieces of jewellery and explores the meaning of materiality, form and features in her own way. It then begins its own creative journey, designing endless new rings for us that somehow feel familiar yet distant.
With the help of AI, Weidenbach and Emmony have visualised a new ring in a video work. The video can be seen as part of the special show SCHMUCK at the International Craft Fair Munich in the Staatliche Antikensammlungen München from 5-10 July 2022. The ring itself will be on display in autumn 2022 in the new permanent exhibition "Handwerk. 1500-1900" at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg.
Download a POSTCARD about the project →here!
INFINITE LOOP is an experimental project by jewellery artist Silvia Weidenbach (Glasgow) and artist Jon Emmony (London) in collaboration with the Staatliche Antikensammlungen and Glyptothek Munich and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg.