"Documents and paintings are frozen frames of time, yet history is a continuum. Through these timeless artifacts, we learn and evolve, each step guided by the wisdom of the past — a dance with history."
This project involves analyzing all 30,171 images in the Finnish National Gallery collection using a Pose Tracking system. The goal is to identify images with human body gestures and store them in a numeric form. The project then utilizes this gesture data to generate art by combining different poses and creating smooth transitions, resulting in images that resemble a dance.
The core of this artwork is a generative system that randomly selects multiple gesture datasets extracted from historical paintings. By using a customized algorithm, these gestures smoothly transition from one to the other, forming densely populated and dynamic scenes.
Originally, the intention was to integrate the gestures of the audience captured via camera, seamlessly transitioning their poses into those from historical paintings, emphasizing the idea that "history is a continuum," where those moments captured in the past had shaped who we are today.
However, since the final piece is minted as an NFT on the blockchain and generated directly on the platform's server, which lacks camera access, this interactive component involving the viewers' live gestures was not implemented.
After the image finishes generating, you can hover over it to see which parts are directly from the paintings. If you hover over a specific person, it will show the original image and the analyzed pose.
The traits in the generative system
The traits in this work not only serve to create variations in the visual output, but are also designed to reflect the theme of history and the progression of art through time. There are three main traits in this work, which are People, Art Style, and Palettes.
The People trait describes how human poses are generated and assembled in the work. It represents the different roles in society that drive the evolution of history.
"Horizontal Wavers",
"Vertical Wavers",
"Ordinary Crowd",
"Leaders and Followers",
"The Emperor",
"Revolutioners"
The Art Style trait introduces more variation to the visuals. The drawing styles are connected to historical art movements, reflecting the theme of evolution over time.
"CaveDrawing",
"Impressionism",
"Fauvism",
"Futurism",
"AbstractExpressionism",
"Modernism"
"ContemporaryDrawing",
The Palettes trait uses the 24 solar terms as inspiration to create palettes, as a metaphor for the passage of time and changing seasons.
Combine24 Generative Art Competition
A Dance with History was created for Combine24, an international generative art competition organized by the Finnish National Gallery -- and it is also the world's first generative art contest hosted by a national museum. Among approximately 100 entries from 47 countries, this project proudly represents the sole shortlisted entry from Asia.
The 10 shortlisted works have been featured in the "Remix the Archive" exhibition, an on-site showcase for Combine24 in Helsinki, Finland. All shortlisted works, including this piece, have been minted as NFTs on highlight.xyz. You can explore all the works further at combine24.alusta.art.
