ESSENCE

ESSENCE stages a “quiet confrontation” between two fundamentally opposing ways of seeing: the “intentional ink” of Katsushika Hokusai, rooted in human-centric meaning, myth, and mortality, and the “relentless abstraction” of the modern “machine gaze”.

The work operates as a critical prompt that queries the non-neutrality of computational systems. It specifically investigates how AI-driven computer vision models “isolate objects as detached labels”, stripping them of narrative context and emotional resonance. The medium is the message: the work’s custom software literally employs the YOLO (You Only Look Once) object detection algorithm, exposing its “unblinking lens” as it reduces the world to a sterile list of “object classes”.

By engaging with Hokusai’s manga – his 19th-century “algorithmic” manuals for artists – the work builds on a genealogy of systematic art practice. It critically contrasts Hokusai’s pedagogical quest to capture “essence” (the potent, archetypal spirit of a thing) with the AI’s crude statistical classification.

ESSENCE poses a central question about the mediation of identity through technology: “If a machine sees a face as just another data point, can it ever see us at all?”. The work is not an anti-technology polemic but a humanist critique, a call for accountability that argues while machines can mimic vision, “meaning is still our burden to carry”.

Exhibition History & Provenance

• Premiere: “AI Hokusai: Legacy Encoded” virtual exhibition, May 2025
• Creation: Produced as part of the AI Hokusai ArtTech Research Project, an international online residency (2024-2025).
• Context: Selected from over 400 applicants, the work was created for the project’s dual-track residency and academic study, which investigated the “future of creativity, ethics and the role of the artist”.
• Reception: Positioned as a flagship artwork exemplifying the exhibition’s core thesis.

Press & Bibliography

• 300 Magazine: “AI Hokusai: Marriage of Japanese Art Tradition and Technology“.
• Fine Art Shippers: “AI Hokusai Explores New Horizons in Art“.
• “AI Hokusai: Legacy Encoded” (Exhibition Catalogue).

Exhibition Specifications

• Format: MP4 Video
• Dimensions: 1920×1080 (16:9)
• Duration: 4m 50s
• Soundtrack: Stereo

News

• AI Hokusai Art+AI Residency – September 30, 2024
  Alex May has been selected as the UK artist for the AI Hokusai Art+AI Residency, an international program exploring the intersection of art and AI.