•Hermes/Unesco

Web_25_Bollati_01

Web_25_Bollati_02

Web_25_Bollati_03

Web_25_Bollati_04

Hermes/Unesco is a speculative anthropology project using images, and it consists of a catalogue of objects invented by non-human intelligence, inspired by the legacy of ancient civilizations. It is a retrofuturistic visual exercise that asks what would happen to art history if it were subjected to an AI remix.

The project brings together 999 photographs generated from masks, sculptures, icons, and totems taken from catalogues in the UNESCO World Heritage collection, combined with the Midjourney programme. “What would a mashup of a vase from Oceania with a mask made in West Africa 200 years earlier look like? Or a Roman bust mixed with a Sumerian clay figure?” the artist asks. Whether for text or image, AIs are trained through repetition; they identify the most common forms and content and replicate them to create syntheses. Rather than creating, they recreate, remix and mimic. The Hermes/Unesco images are fictitious but reflect the most widespread patterns in the vast archive of humanity that is the internet. Despite their apparent randomness, they speak to us of cultural hegemony and the imposition of certain civilizing narratives over others. As its author, Martín Bollati, reminds us, Hermes was the Greek god of communication, but also of theft.

•

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1986, Martín Bollati is a visual artist, editor, and educator. He is the founder and director of SED editorial and 0/0. His work explores the relationship between photography and fiction, with a particular interest in the discursive capacities that exist on the margins of the photographic apparatus and its structure. He has published A Kind of Loop (Riot Books), La Forma Bruta (Universidad de Cádiz), Vacant Dream State (280a), Para Describir una Flor (Raya Editorial), and Ruinas sin Título, Aguas Vivas, Texto Nazi, Hermes/Unesco, and El Mundo es un tubo (SED editorial). His work has been exhibited at the 3rd Beijing Photography Biennale, the Kirchner Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, Galería Cero in Madrid, and Galería Hydra in Mexico City, among others. In 2014, he was awarded the XI Roberto Villagraz Grant to pursue an MA in Conceptual Photography at the EFTI School in Madrid. In 2017, he received the award for Best Latin American Photobook at the Latin American Photography Colloquium in Mexico for his work as an editor. In 2018, he won the Art Trail Tesla Award at the Unseen Festival in Amsterdam with the 280a collective. That same year, his work was featured in Ones to Watch by the British Journal of Photography.