Solo exhibition
- Dates
- July 21 - August 7, 2022
- Venue
- Vellum LA, Los Angeles
- Curated by
- Jesse Damiani and Sinziana Velicescu
- Artists
- Sofia Crespo
Brief Histories of Simulated Lifeforms was Sofia Crespo's first solo exhibition. All work was presented on Luma Canvas LED displays.
When most people think of artificial intelligence, they imagine inorganic hardware and machines. Crespo has established an alternative approach, asking how algorithms might let us see biology, nature, and evolution with fresh eyes.
Her explorations of simulated life bring the organic into the digital. The work imagines what kinds of speculative lifeforms might one day exist, and also holds a mirror to the biological world of the here and now, revealing how carbon-based life uses “artificial” mechanisms to simulate itself and evolve. In the process, Crespo lets viewers find wonder in the algorithmic while deepening their appreciation for the organic.
“The plan, a memory of the future, tries on reality to see if it fits.” Laurence Gonzales, Deep Survival
The exhibition drew from two bodies of work: Artificial Natural History and Sediment Nodes. The first is framed as “a book that never was,” a collection of botanical and zoological observations of speculative life. The second turns to sediment, exploring the “interconnections of what we assume inert,” floating particulate matter that is itself “full of life, color and form.”
Taken together, the works reflect a deep relationship between the physical and the digital. Crespo troubles the usual binary between the two, proposing that each has insights to offer the other.
About Sofia Crespo
Sofia Crespo is an artist focused on artificial life and biologically inspired technologies, particularly the way organic life uses artificial mechanisms to simulate itself and evolve. Interested in the workings of the human brain, she looks at the similarities between AI image formation and the ways humans express themselves creatively and recognize their world. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Nvidia's GTC AI Gallery, Ars Electronica Garden, and MAXXI, and she spoke at TED in 2022.
