Teaching Fellow Joe Gilmore's work with Artificial Intelligence published in Clot Magazine

Marking the 60th anniversary of the celebrated work Utopia or Oblivion, Joe Gilmore generated images using descriptions of simulations of various differential equations connected to chaos theory.

Utopia or Oblivion is a collection of sound works that respond to Fuller’s essays, featuring 10 pioneering experimental artists. Utopia or Oblivion further investigates the conversation between music and the visual through artwork by Joe Gilmore, who explains, “When Adrian Corker commissioned me to design the cover for the LP Utopia or Oblivion, I thought it would be somehow appropriate to use an AI-generated image. I had been experimenting with Midjourney for several months and had a group of images I thought might work.”

I am intrigued by the relationship between language (description) and image (reality) and human and machine interaction. 

Not only are there physical prints created for Utopia or Oblivion by Joe Gilmore and Paul Prudence, but also to evoke the blockchain fluidity of how work can be linked and move backwards and forwards from physical and digital spaces, Utopia or Oblivion is a website. The online screen-based space acts as a repository and an exhibition with works curated by Gilmore, who further explains:

Joe Gilmore, 2023

The artists whose work I selected to be included in this exhibition are all using AI in interesting ways. I invited each artist to share some of their work with me. In most cases, this was work which I had seen before. I then made a small selection from each artist – works which I thought were loosely related to Fuller’s work and, at the same time, revealed interesting approaches to working with AI.

Read more about Utopia or Oblivian in the Clot Magazine article, Insight: ‘Utopia or Oblivion’, sonic explorations on art & science.