Zufällige Formen (DALL E 2), 2023

Laser-engraved fibreboard, Acrylic

34 x 64 x 4 cm

Unique

Zufällige Formen (DALL E 2) was created during an artist residency in Murnau am Staffelsee (Bavaria, DE) and forms a conceptual counterpoint to works developed from 3D-scanned fragments of local tree bark. While the bark surfaces, captured at an almost microscopic level, reveal an uncanny crossover between organic growth patterns and early forms of human inscription — resembling cellular structures, ancient scripts, or proto-languages — Zufällige Formen approaches the idea of form and meaning from a different angle.

Using the text-to-image generator DALL·E 2, the artist issued a deceptively simple prompt: to produce truly random shapes. The request touches on a fundamental paradox in computational systems: true randomness, as it exists in nature, is nearly impossible to achieve within the constraints of digital logic and algorithmic processes. Instead, what emerges are images that reveal the underlying limitations and biases of machine learning systems — artifacts of probability, training data, and the engineered architectures of artificial intelligence.

In juxtaposition to the 3D-scanned bark surfaces — where form arises through slow, natural processes and carries with it the latent memory of organic life — the generated shapes in Zufällige Formen are the products of synthetic processes, simulations of randomness without its true essence. The work thus engages critically with ideas of entropy, authorship, and materiality, questioning where the boundaries lie between natural emergence and artificial construction.

At the intersection of biology, language, and machine imagination, Zufällige Formen (DALL E 2) reflects on the human impulse to create, categorize, and interpret patterns, whether found in the depths of the forest or conjured from the latent spaces of neural networks.