By Carola Schmidt, 2023.
Exploring the Boundaries of Art and Technology: Where AI Meets Canvas
Transcending Reality: Unleashing the Aura
Exhibition: Rathaus Vienna, 04.05.2023
"Beyond Human Boundaries: AI Art by Lulu Schmidt & the Ghostpainter.“
Lulu Schmidt is the alter ego of Carola Schmidt, an academic artist and master student of Rebecca Horn. The exhibition presents an exploration of the boundaries between human and machine-created art. The series of works, created with AI and painted on large formats using a ghost painter, challenge our understanding of what it means to be an artist in the 21st century.
At the heart of this exhibition is the question of originality and the role of technology in the creation of art. The exhibited artwork is a testament to the human machine relationship, honoring the bot and its ability to create something bigger than itself whilst exploring themes of transformation and identity.
The series of works are both undeniably artificial and yet bursting with humanity and emotion.
Throughout the exhibition, humor and irony are also on full display, and the audience is invited to question the true identity of the artist, the role of technology in art production, and the meaning of art itself.
At the center of the image motifs are mystified memories.
Grown up in the catholic dead end of austrias northern countryside near the iron curtain, Lulu found her sanctuary in playing the violin. Her father hunted deer, and starting at the age of 3 she frequently played herself into rage, often performing in front of the dead deer in the basement of the family house, believing to relieve their departure of the soul which she believed took place three days after the hunting.
An added early developed obsession with opera helped her dreaming herself into a world far away. While most of the images feature the deer as a recurring element, some motifs evoke the Catholic environment in which the artist grew up and appear as a contemporary ironic take on altar paintings. The canvas as an artistic material is also present throughout the images, often taking on a new form such as a pink triangle that serves as a doorway to another world. Recently, a new optimistic element has emerged in the form of an English Setter, a hunting dog, which is now present in some of the images. The images also capture the almost religious moment of dissolving into something beyond oneself - the moment of transformation that occurs both in the interaction with AI and in the act of painting.
CAROLA SCHMIDT VITA:
LULU SCHMIDT BIO & Press: