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A Google Tree Interview with Bitforms: “[...] So in some sense I’m trying to create a picture to elicit a particular kind of human attention and response, but the picture is created by and composed of algorithms, software, and data. And to some degree these can be antithetical, but I’m trying to make sense of the human-machine axis in ways that don’t anthropomorphize machines or reduce humans to computers. Something more productive, more hopeful, where the differences and the gaps between human and machine ‘vision’ produce surprising and fruitful new ways of looking at the world.
The pandemic has also provided time to reflect on exactly what I do as an artist—how I work and what my role is. And something I keep questioning is the central role usually ascribed to the artist. I work with so many things that have their own logics, rules, and processes, like computers, digital cameras, and all the software I use that is the joint creation of so many people. In some ways I’m more of a simple operator of a complicated picture-making apparatus. |
I’m not the prime agent of its aesthetic; I’m merely trying to steer it in a particular direction. Something that’s stuck with me is when (Vilém) Flusser says that artists aim at making improbable images within their apparatus. So ultimately the way I work is with pre-existing software and digital apparatuses connected to sensors, fabrication, and printing technologies. I think of them as super simple ecologies when they are combined together. What I do is try and seed these processes with different things and see what happens. Some things grow completely fine on their own and need no intervention from me at all—I’m simply left to discover really interesting forms.
Some things need more work in tending to—pruning and pushing in particular directions. But I am following or flowing with all the nonhuman elements that participate in the creation of the artwork. And in that sense gardening actually becomes an apt metaphor for making art with technology. It’s a metaphor that foregrounds context and environment, that emphasizes slow repetitive work and steady observation, and that reduces the artist to simply being one agent among many in a rich ecosystem.” - Clement Valla
Clement Valla is a New York-based artist whose work considers the way computer vision systems apprehend the world and the way in which automated image production entangles people and things in increasingly complex ways. His work has been cited in The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, TIME Magazine, El Pais, Huffington Post, Rhizome, Domus, Wired, The Brooklyn Rail, Liberation, and on BBC television. Valla received a BA in Architecture from Columbia University and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in Digital+Media. He is currently an assistant professor at RISD.
He has had recent solo exhibitions at bitforms gallery in San Francisco, CA; XPO Gallery in Paris, France; and Transfer Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. His work has also been exhibited at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP), Seoul, South Korea; ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; Draiflessen Collection, Mettingen, Germany; MU, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Stedelijk Museum, Breda, The Netherlands; Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris, France; the ICA, London, United Kingdom; The Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN; Museum of the Moving Image, Queens, NY; Thomassen Galleri, Gothenburg, Sweden; Mulherin + Pollard Projects, New York, NY; DAAP Galleries, University of Cincinnati, OH; and 319 Scholes, Brooklyn, NY.
Some things need more work in tending to—pruning and pushing in particular directions. But I am following or flowing with all the nonhuman elements that participate in the creation of the artwork. And in that sense gardening actually becomes an apt metaphor for making art with technology. It’s a metaphor that foregrounds context and environment, that emphasizes slow repetitive work and steady observation, and that reduces the artist to simply being one agent among many in a rich ecosystem.” - Clement Valla
Clement Valla is a New York-based artist whose work considers the way computer vision systems apprehend the world and the way in which automated image production entangles people and things in increasingly complex ways. His work has been cited in The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, TIME Magazine, El Pais, Huffington Post, Rhizome, Domus, Wired, The Brooklyn Rail, Liberation, and on BBC television. Valla received a BA in Architecture from Columbia University and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in Digital+Media. He is currently an assistant professor at RISD.
He has had recent solo exhibitions at bitforms gallery in San Francisco, CA; XPO Gallery in Paris, France; and Transfer Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. His work has also been exhibited at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP), Seoul, South Korea; ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; Draiflessen Collection, Mettingen, Germany; MU, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Stedelijk Museum, Breda, The Netherlands; Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris, France; the ICA, London, United Kingdom; The Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN; Museum of the Moving Image, Queens, NY; Thomassen Galleri, Gothenburg, Sweden; Mulherin + Pollard Projects, New York, NY; DAAP Galleries, University of Cincinnati, OH; and 319 Scholes, Brooklyn, NY.
Selected Group Exhibitions:
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⌘F: Clement Valla, bitforms gallery - bitforms gallery. (2020, June 18). Bitforms Gallery. https://www.bitforms.art/news/cmd-f-clement-valla
clementvalla.com. (n.d.-b). Clement Valla. https://clementvalla.com/
clementvalla.com. (n.d.-b). Clement Valla. https://clementvalla.com/
