Erica Lapadat- Janzen & Philippe Pasquier
Dreamscape, 2024
In response to AI-generated art based on big data, the Metacreation Lab, led by Philippe Pasquier, developed Autolume, a no-coding environment that allows artists to train AI models using their chosen works. This tool enables non-experts to manipulate models and generate both still and animated outputs.
For Dreamscape, the Metacreation Lab collaborated with Vancouver-based visual artist Erica Lapadat-Janzen. Using Autolume, they hand-picked and treated 12 stills and 9 video loops, capturing her unique aesthetic. Lapadat-Janzen's media artworks, performances, and installations draw viewers into a world of equilibrium, where moments punctuate daily events to clarify our existence and find poetic meaning.
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Erica Lapadat-Janzen is a net/new media artist based in Vancouver, Canada, and the digital realm. Her work explores the intersection of identity, technology, and the human body, creating a unique space where these elements converge.
Lapadat-Janzen's creations often originate from selfies or portrait photographs, which she meticulously edits to craft the final artwork. Her pieces prominently feature fragmentation, distortion, and fluidity, both visually and conceptually. By digitally altering her self-images, she not only demonstrates her technical mastery but also takes complete control over the entire creative process—from conception and preparation to performance and editing.
A distinctive feature of her work is the replication and repositioning of facial parts within a single image, resulting in an ironic and absurdist deconstruction of her own female image. This technique challenges traditional notions of self-representation and identity.
Lapadat-Janzen has produced and curated several notable art experiences, including GIF FEST 3000, The New Flesh, and Selfie. Her innovative work has garnered attention from prominent media outlets such as the New York Times, the Vancouver Sun, and CBC.
Her work combines touchingly beautiful and painfully attractive elements, often creating conflicting feelings and thoughts. Through abstraction and repetition, she crafts intense personal moments that shift meaning and invite multifaceted interpretations.
@lapadatjanzen
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Philippe Pasquier is a professor at Simon Fraser University's School of Interactive Arts and Technology, where he directs the Metacreation Lab for Creative AI. He leads a research-creation program around generative
systems for creative tasks. As such, he is a scientist specialized in artificial intelligence since 1999, a software designer, a multidisciplinary media artist, an educator, and a community builder. Pursuing a multidisciplinary
research-creation program, his contributions bridge fundamental research on generative systems, machine learning, affective computing, and computer-assisted creativity, with applied research in the creative software industry, and artistic practice in interactive and generative art.
The Metacreation Lab’s artistic work has been shown in prominent venues on all seven continents, including at Ars Electronica (Austria), Centre Pompidou (France), Mutek Festival (Canada), ZKM (Germany), Eastern Block (Canada), Earzoom festival (Slovenia), ISEA2012 (Turkey), ISEA2014 (Dubai), ISEA2016 (Hong Kong), ISEA2017 (Columbia), Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal (Canada), Plus One Gallery (USA), Space One (Korea), Sydney Biennale (Australia), Frame Biennale (Australia), Vooruit (Belgium), ICST (Switzerland), and Akbank (Turkey), Kilele (Kenya).