Steve DiPaola: Pareidolia
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Surrey Art Gallery 13750 88 Ave, Surrey, British Columbia V3W 3L1
Steve DiPaola, "Pareidolia," 2019
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Steve DiPaola’s generative art uses pattern recognition software to reconfigure the world around us. His flowing, organic compositions call to mind a dreamlike reality. The title Pareidolia refers to the detection of patterns in an environment where there are none. Mimicking this process, DiPaola blends found images and patterns from the natural environment and art history with recorded footage of people and places. The resulting imagery bears an uncanny resemblance to our own world, but as seen through a kaleidoscopic lens where everything is composed of digital matter. DiPaola’s artworks entrance the eye, while exposing us—for better or worse—to how a machine sees the world.
A site-specific project, Pareidolia features footage of the Surrey Arts Centre and several project participants. DiPaola’s software does not discriminate between the architecture of the building and the people present within it, generating an endless variety of patterns that conjoin them and create a space in which each appears to be absorbed into the other. In this way, DiPaola’s software draws attention to the ways in which algorithmic technology is shaping the way we see the world and our own sense of identity. Pareidolia reflects the reality of modern life: just as much as algorithmic software provides us with new ways of seeing and living, so too does it implicate us in a vast, unseen network of data.
“It’s not often that we find ourselves the subject of an artwork,” says Assistant Curator Rhys Edwards, who himself appears in Pareidolia. “Steve’s work speaks to how deeply embedded we are in a world of machines. Across every level of society—from individuals to entire institutions—we find ourselves conjoined within a virtual reality that influences how and what we see.”
Pareidolia joins with other exhibitions currently on display at Surrey Art Gallery, including a display of paintings by Surrey-based artist Nicoletta Baumeister in In the Realm of Perception; thought-provoking stories connected to African diasporic experience in the short film Triangle Trade: Camille Turner, Jérôme Havre, and Cauleen Smith; the ultimate jigsaw puzzle for visitors to interact with in Colette Urban: Gambler; and a showcase of the next generation of artists in Purposeful Play: Art by Surrey Secondary School Students.
About the Artist
Steve DiPaola is a Professor in the School of Interactive Art and Technology at Simon Fraser University. Working as a scientist and artist, he uses computational models of creativity, cognition, and artificial intelligence to create generative and interactive art installations. He explores the uneasy interplay between what it means for humans to perceive and emote in the modern computer era. DiPaola’s art has been exhibited internationally at the A.I.R. and Tibor de Nagy galleries in NYC, Tenderpixel and LimeWharf galleries in London, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the MIT Museum, and Cambridge University’s King’s Art Centre.