Iosif
Romania
Where do you locate yourself in relation to the systems you work with?
This position is as old as humanity itself — from prehistory to the present — but has been continuously amplified, becoming explosive in the last decade: it is the position of the human being seeking to understand, to form an opinion, to define themselves in relation to the world and to express that — both for themselves and for others. Computers, the software we use, and the global network they are embedded in now amplify human capacity almost demiurgically, and art is a particularly revealing case. The feeling, beyond and along with all previous accumulations, is one of a new beginning — of discovery and creation of a new world.
Where are you heading, and what is pulling you there?
All prior accumulations — intellectual and artistic, through flux and reflux — are now empowered as never before by the productive force of computers and the software I use. This places me within the horizon of a distinct universe: that of experimentalism.
For my own art — and, I believe, for any current form of expression — the temptation and opportunity go by one name: Ars Experimentlia.
Ars Experimentlia – a latinate formulation of contemporary creativity, designates an open artistic practice in which new technologies are not mere tools, but active partners in the creative process, in a continuous search for autonomous expression and emergent forms.
How would you describe the space your practice is currently unfolding in?
Today’s artistic space, hybrid and metamorphic, offers fewer and fewer points of reference for orientation and creative balance — as it once did. Instead, it infinitely amplifies a new direction: dynamic motion. This is a "solution" as captivating — in the sense of attracting, even capturing one’s interest — as it is generous in potential. The horizon of human curiosity merges with that of research, intuition, and experimentation. And the Art of Experimentation will be, in the foreseeable future, the one to generate the fundamental values.
Artist Statement
The “Selfportrait AI” series began with a simple question: how would artificial intelligence portray itself in Midjourney?
What followed was a subtle collaboration between the undulatory matrix rigor of CorelDRAW and the conceptual combinatory freedom of the AI. Through this process, Midjourney’s “self-portrait” gained expressiveness, nuance, and above all, a form of essentialization that brings into play both the limits of technology and identity projections.
