Matty Mariansky, an artist working in generative art, synthetic media and artificial intelligence.

Selected works:





Superhighway
2024

“...In examining the current trajectory of generative AI tools, it becomes evident that the Singularity will be less a triumphant merging of man and machine, and more a Faustian bargain, wherein we exchange our humanity for the promise of godlike powers.“

from “The Percipient Void : Blueprints for a Science of Escape”
Real Summer
2024

In the summer of 2001, I returned to Tel Aviv after living in New York for a while. In my suitcase, I brought a digital camera. Free from work and obligations, I wandered around the city photographing everything Tel Avivian that I had missed - beach sand, rooftops against blue skies, peeling walls, friends, and random people. 

This year, 2024, I accidentally stumbled upon a forgotten folder on my disk containing that pile of photographs from back then. The photos looked wrong to me. Not accurate. Not good. Many things I clearly remembered weren't there. I remember being surprised by the sheer amount of antennas and electrical cables everywhere. I distinctly remember a sense of dark happenings behind the scenes, some kind of deal brewing unbeknownst to anyone (I landed in Tel Aviv exactly on the day the Twin Towers fell, which I had left behind). Even the composition, form, and the color of light and shadow - everything in the photos wasn't right. 

I took it upon myself to photograph again, using artificial intelligence, the memories from that summer, but this time as they truly were. The new photographs also started with innocent landscapes - a roof against the sky, a paddleboat on the beach. But I found myself drawn more and more to images where the ominous undercurrent finds its way to the surface, as it did then and as it has returned now.


Real Summer was part of my exhibition “Passion for the Real”  at the 
The Martine de Souza-Dassault Gallery, curated by Dr. Michal Mor
From Here On After
2024

An interplay and a power play between man and artificial intelligence. The table and the stones on it are the Al's entire world. This table is joined by the viewers, who sit around it and are invited to place stones from the box on it as they please, to respond to the machine's instructions and requests or ignore them. The voice of the machine announces, expresses desire or gratitude, prophesies or pleads. The work strives to describe the Algorithmic Gaze and discuss the power relations between humans and Al. In a playful manner, the participants are invited to play the role of an omnipotent God, who constructs or destroys the world of the machine.

Exhibited in “All Through the Days: Playfulness in Contemporary Israeli Art" at Ramat Gan Museum of Art, curated by Sari Golan and Adiya Porat 
The Gospel
2024

Artificial intelligence creates an unexpected bridge between old and new - connecting ancient Jewish mystical wisdom with today's social media culture. The AI brings together passages from Kabbalah texts and content from TikTok videos, creating unique insights about life and the future.

This piece shows how age-old wisdom can speak to our fast-paced digital world in surprising ways. Playing out on screen in real-time, the artwork features an AI that constantly scrapes new TikTok videos and blends their messages with traditional teachings, creating an ever-changing stream of modern-day prophecies.

Unlike a recorded video, each moment of this display is unique and created live by the AI, making every viewing experience different from the last.
A Science of Escape
2024

Can an agent, built for the sole purpose of constructing mazes, liberate itself from its own deterministic nature? Likewise, can humans escape their preordained paths and rebel against destiny? Are we simply following a pre-written script, devoid of free will? Or can we forge our own paths?

A Science of Escape explores the interplay between control and liberation. It asks if there is room for the unexpected – for glitches in the system that allow for the triumph of choice over destiny.

Read more about this project 

Para Bellum
2022

Para Bellum is about the conflict of emotion and gut instinct versus logic and reason. Emotions are portrayed by color fields; logic is illustrated by words. These two forces are fighting for dominance over a poster canvas.

Under the hood, ​​Para Bellum utilizes a thin language engine that was trained by reading dozens of books about rebellion and anarchy to generate (mostly) non-existent English phrases. An on-chain embedded font is used to render the familiar, readable letter shapes against the abstract fuzzy color fields.

Para Bellum is a part of Art Blocks Curated.

Read more about this project 

Brushpops
2021

Brushpops is a generative system inspired by Roy Lichtenstein’s iconic work, where a random hash determines the composition of a series of abstract brush strokes.

Lichtenstein’s original work has separated the brushstrokes from their original context, and now we take another step in the same direction, and separate the artist from the work. Surrendering to the random nature of the generative system, I’m no longer able to curate the work, and throw out the outputs I don’t like. I have to relinquish control, and set the work free, where only some loosely-predetermined rules and a hash number will determine the actual outcome.

The Brushstroke was detached from the painting, and it’s now detached from the artist as well.

Read more about this project 

Hidden Birds
2021

Hidden Birds uses an algorithm duo to find birds that are hidden inside the almost-infinite space of possible color stains and curves laid on a canvas. At what moment do stains and lines become a bird?

The first algorithm, the artist, places some color stains on the blank paper, and then calls upon the second one, an art critic to examine it and determine whether it’s birdish enough to its taste.

In an ongoing conversation, the artist is using the critirc’s tiny hints to improve its skills.

Jinn Machine Zero
2021

Jinn Machine Zero uses an algorithm duo to find portraits hidden inside the almost-infinite space of possible color stains and curves laid on a canvas.

In a slow evolutionary process, an artist algorithm consults an art critic algorithm about the best way to draw a portrait from a collection of curves and color stains.

© Supersize | Matty Mariansky