{"id":83890,"date":"2023-09-01T17:05:38","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T14:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=83890"},"modified":"2025-09-12T13:58:57","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T10:58:57","slug":"outsourcing-imagination-artem-konevskikh-on-the-essence-of-neuro-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/outsourcing-imagination-artem-konevskikh-on-the-essence-of-neuro-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Outsourcing Imagination: Artem Konevskikh on the Essence of Neuro-art"},"content":{"rendered":"

Artem Konevskikh \u2014 one of the few programmers who can boast participation in the work of the Large Hadron Collider. Beginning his career in fundamental science, he hardly imagined that he would eventually enter modern art \u2014 an area that seems far removed from the search for the Higgs boson. ForkLog spoke with Artem in person to learn how this happened, what the art community can teach programmers (and vice versa), and which prejudices about humanities knowledge are worth overcoming even for the most hardcore technologist.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Outsourcing
Menikvadrati (2021). Data: aiculedssul<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ForkLog: You have a programming education, you worked in fundamental science, and you worked at \u0426\u0415\u0420\u041d<\/span>. How did you with such a strict technical background come to contemporary art?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A\u0440\u0442\u0435\u043c: <\/strong>Yes, my path is not the most standard. I worked in a laboratory that built a detector for the Large Hadron Collider. Mostly I did data analysis \u2014 this is not so much fundamental science as an auxiliary tool for physicists studying the universe. This experience had a strong influence on me.<\/p>\n

Even now, when I am engaged only in art, I remember experimental physics and strive to work on projects following the same principle scientists use to approach research: run experiments that can be replicated and share the knowledge gained. In art there are two kinds of people. Some share their experience, others keep their knowledge secret. Working at CERN taught me to relate to the first group. By contributing to the development of a shared environment, I not only help others but also enrich my own knowledge.<\/p>\n

I teach a lot because I see: artists have a keen interest in neural networks, but not everyone understands how they really work. It is a quite complex topic \u2014 to understand it well, one needs to brush up on mathematics and programming. It takes time, and someone without a technical background will have trouble. Therefore, if there is an opportunity to share knowledge, one should take advantage of it.<\/p>\n

ForkLog: Teaching linear algebra to practitioners of contemporary art?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A\u0440\u0442\u0435\u043c: <\/strong>We don\u2019t go that far with students, but they do learn, for example, to train neural networks on their own. I structure the course so that we refer to different mediums<\/span> \u2014 we work with images, video, text, 3D graphics, that is, with everything that may be needed in practice.<\/p>\n

As a child I attended art school and learned to draw. It didn\u2019t go very well, but I liked it. I still draw, but for me it is more of a hobby than artistic practice.<\/p>\n

Science, technology and art can always enrich each other. And this works not only in one direction. Art for science is also a useful instrument. It can critique technology, serve as an illustration of scientific processes. I began meeting artists at the festival \u0423\u0441\u043a\u043e\u0440\u0438\u0442\u0435\u043b\u044c \u041d\u043e\u0432\u043e\u0439 \u041c\u043e\u0441\u043a\u0432\u044b<\/a>, which took place in 2015 at the Acceleration Complex \u0424\u0418\u0410\u041d<\/span>. Through these interactions I realised that many artists want to talk about science, but lack the appropriate knowledge.<\/p>\n

Generative art became popular among artists when the neural network DeepDream appeared, which could be run on a home computer. It offered a rich visual range. DeepDream became the first neural network that sparked conversations about whether artificial intelligence could replace<\/a> an artist.<\/p>\n

ForkLog: And you decided to test it yourself?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Artem:<\/strong> I began experimenting with DeepDream and data-driven art \u2014 art based on data analysis or visualization. One day, seeing in the news how Lenin statues were being torn down, I recalled the famous sketch by Sergei Kuryokhin that the leader of world revolution was a mushroom and at the same time a radio wave. I drew a map of Lenin\u2019s broadcasting, with the mausoleum at the center and Lenin monuments as antennas. Then I aggregated a lot of data on statue locations and visualised the trajectories of Lenin\u2019s thought propagation. The humour is that I implemented this project at a geodata hackathon where I was expected to do something entirely different. It turned into something like an art intervention.<\/p>\n

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Lenin\u2019s Mycelium (2017). Data: aiculedssul<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After those initial steps I realised that staying in science, detached from real life, bored me. I applied to participate in the Strlka Institute program The New Normal<\/i>, which was curated by the American technology philosopher Benjamin H. Bratton<\/a>. I was accepted, and that is how I pivoted toward art. It stopped being a pastime and became serious work with artists \u2014 firstly with Egor Kraft, whom I helped with the project Content Aware Studies<\/a>, where neural networks restored time-damaged antiquities and generated video based on them.<\/p>\n

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