Of Ideal: The Frankensteinian extraction and knitting-together of thinking minds

In an unprecedented online exhibition by New York-based conceptual artist, Pierre Huyghe, images conjured from the inner workings of the human psyche frolic and transform from the screens of his critics around the world. Of Ideal (2019 - ongoing), which is a Hauser & Wirth exhibition, is demonstrative of the way human and artificial intelligence can fuse to create something entirely otherworldly, captivating and fantastically unsettling. 

The works Huyghe presents in Of Ideal are defined by the artist as ‘mental image works,’ products of a somewhat clinical artistic initiative whereby participants were asked to consider certain concepts often with a visual prompt. These included basic life forms, prehistoric tools, machines and other artworks. As they held their conceptions in their mind’s eye, their brains were scanned by a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine at Kyoto University’s Kamitani Lab. The scans were then fed into specialised computer software that interpreted them by comparing them to a database of pictures taken in the real world. The nightmarish visions Huyghe has created are the physical manifestations of the thoughts of waking subjects, a Frankensteinian extraction and knitting-together of thinking minds. 

That the images prove unsetting is Huyghe’s artistic modus operandi. His first ‘mental image work,’ Uumwelt (Environment), was shown at the Serpentine in London as part of a solo exhibition in 2018. In that exhibition, 50,000 bluebottle flies were released into the gallery to fabricate further unease, blurring the line between experiential art and true discomfort.

The nebulous and undulating images possess an almost foetal quality in their swift development and degeneration while the software attempts to match the visual information from the brain scans to the database of imagery. There is something about the works which seems simultaneously to signify the blossoming and the decay of some kind of natural substance. 

Huyghe has succeeded in externalising the human subconscious via an artificial neural network bypassing the physical faculties that usually allow humans to explain their thoughts. The very images created in the fMRI find their way into the conscious perception of his viewers, allowing them to observe and articulate the complex phenomenon of intelligence through the amorphous images. At Of Ideal’s essence lies the question: Where can we draw the line between organic and contrived modes of intelligence?

Huyghe is a contributor to the Nicole Brachetti Peretti collection, and his works are internationally exhibited. The multi-award-winning artist has most recently been appointed Artistic Director of the Okayama Art Summit 2019.