Series of 8 engravings
2023
The origin of sign language is commonly attributed to the Spanish priest Juan Pablo Bonet and his treatise “Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos” (“Reduction of the letters and the art of teaching speech to the mute”), published in 1620. The treatise included eight engravings by Diego de Astor representing the “Demonstrative Alphabet”. Those engravings have been plagiarized, adapted and translated to serve as a basis for the development of sign languages throughout Europe.
Four centuries later, variations of the original engravings were generated using artificial intelligence. The resulting images were then hand cut and printed to produce eight new engravings.
AI still can’t draw hands. It interprets and reproduces them as amalgams of deformed flesh and intertwined protuberances. Coupled with the engraving techniques of the 17th century, disturbing anatomies of monsters and chimeras resurface: macabre and absurd spawns of human and machine illustrating the trans-humanist theories that accompany the exponential development of AIs. An interspecies dialogue of the deaf.
The project aims to contextualize Juan Pablo Bonet’s noble intentions of inclusion of the minorities and of dissemination of knowledge, in contrast with the social impacts of the current technological revolution: homogenization of perceived reality, reductionism and bias of training datasets, supplantation of the vero by the simil.
Printed on organic archive 210gsm paper at Printmaking Barcelona.
Thanks to Dora Marquez, Ignasi Aguirre, Constanza Ternicier, Xavi Vinaixa.
Official selection WE:NOW 2024.