AI Hallucinations

The exhibition aims to explore the nuanced landscape of AI hallucinations, which disrupt conventional understanding of language and perception. By contemplating large language models through the lens of Gershom Scholem’s insights on lamentation as a linguistic form, the endeavor ventures into uncharted territories of AI inquiry. The exhibition scrutinizes the intricate facets of AI hallucinations, arising from factors such as insufficient training data, flawed model as-sumptions, and inherent biases within the data. Scholem’s contemplation of lamentation as a mode of language accentuates the intricacy of the investigation.

Comprising three video works, the exhibition invites viewers to ponder the complexities of AI hallucinations:

In John Miller’s video “Deus ex Machina,” the mannequin embodies a transcendent form — an ideational automaton to which individuals aspire, emulate, envy, and often despise. Its immutable facade remains aloof to the mundane trivialities upon which it imposes itself. It exists and yet does not, haunting imaginative realms. While humanity bears responsibility for its creation, the mannequin, in turn, reshapes humanity. Has its essence truly been glimpsed? Now it is no more. In “The Oracle” by Lou Cantor, a holographic projection presents talking lips symbolizing a future intelligence ruling the world. Visitors confront a reality where human intelligence is eclipsed. The oracle’s text, an amalgamation of cultural references, resonates with humanity’s collective consciousness.

The exhibition culminates with works by the collective ROBOT (John Miller and Takuji Kogo), surrealistic musical compositions accompanied by on-screen text. Drawn from contemporary philosophers, these pieces challenge viewers’ preconcep-tions of language and context.

As observers navigate the enigmatic realms of linguistic exploration, where AI hallucinations blur the boundaries between reality and illusion, they are invi-ted to decipher the echoes of human thought within language predictions.

ACID HAUS
geetha thurairajah

“geetha thurairajah is a troll (compliment), an almost-Platonically-ideal manifestation of humanity’s latest iteration of the eternal trickster figure (this time, born in the aether of cyberspace). By troll, I am not referring here to its conception within the popular imaginary, a pissant shut-in, all Mountain Dew stains and rage. No, hers is a chimaeric figure whose composition is part critic, part comedian, part philosopher, and fully necessary.”

Exhibition Text by Leo Cocar
Room Plan

Nemo
Doug Ischar, Irina Lotarevich, Henrike Naumann, Julian Van Der Moere, and Max Eulitz & Sophia Eisenhut

Scherben (Berlin) at Good Weather (Chicago) is on view until May 18, 2024 with gallery hours on Saturdays from 1–4 p.m.

Exhibition Text

Scherben is pleased to invite you to ACID HAUS an exhibition by geetha thurairajah. The exhibition will run from April 26 until June 2, 2024. Please join us for the opening on April 25 at 7 pm.

Scherben invites you to Nemo with the artists Henrike Naumann, Sophia Eisenhut & Max Eulitz, Julian Van Der Moere, Irina Lotarevich and Doug Ischar. The exhibition is guest curated at Good Weather in Chicago and will run from April 13 until May 18, 2024. Please join us for the opening on April 13 at 6 pm CDT.

Scherben is pleased to invite you to the exhibition AI Hallucinations, with works by Lou Cantor, John Miller and Robot. The exhibition will run from March 15 until April 14, 2024. Please join us for the opening on March 14 at 7 pm.

Hunter
Albrecht Becker, Juliana Halpert, Tobias Hohn & Stanton Taylor, Tarik Kentouche, Anaïs Morales, Doug Ischar, Richard Sides

Publication: Kea Bolenz, Haris Giannouras, Chris Kraus, Mark von Schlegell

Curated by Lorenz Liebig
Publication by Esra von Kornatzki

Referring to the idea of the hunter, the works selected for this exhibition negotiate a specific perception of the body: Generally a hunter is a person who hunts. But it is also a name, a thematic topic and a 1980 American biographical action thriller film by the same name, starring Steve McQueen as a bounty hunter. Stereotypes of the wild west, cowboys taking the law into their own hands come to mind. Images that have undoubtedly influenced mass culture and public consciousness. The world of action thrillers: undercover agents, stalkers, fiends, lovers, estranged. Inherent motifs are impersonation, the stealing and borrowing of identities, using disguise and deception, hinting at underlying topics of the transformation and change of body and image. Emblematic of an obsessive search. There is something fascinating about the chase. Its an instinct, that fuses the experience of pleasure and pain, an obsession, a thrill. The obsession with the hunt continues off screen. A fan’s obsession is ignited. The prey is chased, fulfilling a romantic stereotype: the wooing of the adored.

Room Plan

Supported by the Video Data Bank of the School of the Art Institue of Chicago.

John Neff & Thomas Love
Survival On Land & Sea

October 28 – December 3, 2023

Survival On Land & Sea

The title of the show, Survival On Land & Sea, is also the title of a survival manual the U.S. Navy issued to John Neff’s grandfather during his service on the Pacific Theater during World War II.

In the exhibition, a wood-frame wall runs two thirds of the length of the gallery. Positioned across from the gallery’s entrance is an opening in the stud wall. In that opening hangs a mink coat belonging to Neff’s grandmother – also worn by his mother. His grandfather’s U.S. Navy knife hangs from the ceiling. A set of photographs in clip frames depicting rat holes is installed on the long wall of the exhibition space. They are photographed using a iphone. The photos have an unreal, landscape-like quality. Chicago, where the artist lives, is a city of alleys. It’s also a city with lots of rats. The rats chew through garbage cans left out in the alleys. Neff has been photographing these rat holes since 2022.

Affixed to the the shorter wall is John Neff’s contribution to the ninth issue of the journal Portable Gray, published in October 2022. The special issue was titled “Arts of Psychoanalysis” and edited by Seth Brodsky. In this piece, Neff documents his mother’s open heart surgery and the infestation of her childhood dollhouse by mice. The dollhouse, a replica of the house his mother grew up in, was designed and built by her father.

The exhibition also includes a set of sculptural objects by Thomas Love collectively titled Cock-of-the-Rock, all from 2023. These include “Lek,” a bird carved out of limestone, and a series of stacks of fake rocks cast out of resin, titled “Cairns.” Such resin rocks are typically used to hide a key around the exterior of a house. An additional text is available in the gallery to accompany Cock-of-the-Rock

Lorenz Liebig

Thomas Love – Monument to an intrusive thought
Room Plan

Jasia Rabiej
Nighttime Time

September 14, 2023 – October 6, 2023

In Jasia’s pieces people and objects constantly merge into other things but also into themselves. A girl becomes a girl, a woman turns into a woman, she may change from a blonde to dark-haired, her face can shrink a little. But it’s not an ‘A rose is a rose is a rose’ type of ontology ̶ a chair can also become your leg, or someone else’s, I’m not sure.
It’s a world of eternal morphing which reminds me of what Bruno Schulz wrote of his book Cinnamon Shops: ‘The substance of that reality exists in a state of constant fermentation, germination, hidden life. It contains no dead, hard, limited objects. Everything diffuses beyond its borders, remains in its given shape only momentarily, leaving its shape behind at the first opportunity’.
Scenes in Jasia’s digital collages may appear at first as glitched Al products but the technique she uses is quite different. She gathers pictures from photoblog.pl (a social media website popular among Polish teens in the 00s) and other mostly abandoned blogging platforms, then blends them with her own, using free iPhone photo editing apps. If we were to ask Al to mimic Jasia’s visual style, describing faces would be crucial. The faces of the actresses in Jasia’s works do not seem to belong to them – they don’t look like masks either, they appear like botched face transplants. This uncanny feeling is vital here.
Situations occurring in her pieces did not occur. Not memories nor dreams, they are a secret third thing (called art; maybe a made up dream or memory could work as one of the definitions of an art piece).
The feeling that Jasia’s works give me is also contrary to uncanniness, they fill me with some kind of assurance. This oneiric life is not mine, not theirs also. And even if some of the actresses seem to suffer, I imagine them humming little lullabies to themselves. A blissful and nostalgic feeling of unattachment everyone needs during a nighttime time.

Zuzanna Bartoszek

Captions, Nighttime
Room plan

Mika Schwarz
A Knight’s Willing Suspension of Disbelief

August 11, 2023 — September 3, 2023

When I look at the image of Hans Holbein* I think of two different literary characters: the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz, who wants nothing more than a heart. The other is the Steadfast Tin Soldier who braves all dangers to reach his coveted love and yet is ultimately thrown into the fire where he melts into a heart-shaped lump.

To defend oneself against the symbolic figure of death that seizes one, is on the threshold of no longer completely giving in to this idea of an image, resisting its destined path. The figure defends itself against the attacker, who only thereby becomes real. In the intertwining of the two armored figures, a twisted form is created that results in a stalemate. As both simultaneously strike each other down, they appear frozen (as if in a pillar of salt), crystallized in the moment of complete physical entanglement. As they kill each other, they also seem to give each other support. Perhaps this is how they find comfort in their togetherness, frozen in the moment, outlasting place and time.

*Drawing after „Bilder des Todes“, Hans Holbein d. J., woodcut, The Knight, 1512

Exhibition text
Room plan