Filo Sofi Arts is proud to present, Data Rex Machina, highlighting Agnieszka Pilat in her New York SPRING/BREAK Art Show debut. Featuring a dystopian deconstruction of Jan van Eyck’s, ‘Adoration of the Mystic Lamb,’ Filo Sofi Arts Owner/Director and Data Rex Machina curator, Gabrille Aruta evokes techno-religious iconography for Data Rex Machina to evolve Renaissance realism with computer-era consciousness.
Dubbed, the Silicon Valley elite’s favorite artist by New York Magazine and featured on CNN, Agnieszka Pilat originally moved to San Francisco from Poland where after developer Paul Stein commissioned her to paint a vintage fire alarm she shifted her focus from human portraits to encapsulate the essence of humanity’s relationship to technology. “I arrange machinery in formal compositions,” notes Pilat, “to evoke the power that technology commands in human society today while also recognizing humanity’s legitimate fears of automation.”
This tension between idolatry and anxiety is what inspired Filo Sofi Arts to examine themes of surveillance and identity inherent in the Artificial Intelligence and algorithms harvesting the data based on our actions. “Modern technology provides a lens to view our values, but machine learning and personalized media distract us from genuine reflection,” notes curator, Gabrielle Aruta. “Data Rex Machina pushes viewers to recognize that the machines driving our future hide the data reflecting our lives.”
In the original ‘Adoration of the Mystic Lamb’, Van Eyck created realism for the craft of painting, where his unique use of oils and layers of glaze provided the physical means for this technique, a form of technology mirroring the Eucharistic transubstantiation of the blood of Christ forming the central image of the work. Data Rex Machina features Pilat’s creative partnership with the yellow robotic dog, Spot, where the artist has established the genre of contemporary realism by utilizing a meta-medium for art where the subject matter in essence creates itself. While its original creators may have designed Spot’s artificial intelligence algorithms and the highly sophisticated robotics allowing her (the preferred pronoun from Pilat) to paint, the wonder for modern viewers is in discerning where her human programming ends and canine consciousness begins.
Data Rex Machina portrays Spot as a modern Christ for viewers to examine their own, ‘Adoration of the Machinic Lamb.’ Here Pilat mirrors van Eyck in providing intimate portraits of a loving creator in relationship with her progeny. The arm affixed to Spot (Rex) provides the Machina, manipulating viewers to contemplate the end of human-centric drama to evolve in peaceful symbiosis with our creations rather than becoming prisoners of our own devices. This nurturing and religiously iconic spirit can be seen in Spot’s painting of “Madonna and Child” Spot created as a self-portrait of “herself” and her mother, Pilat.
In its portrayal of celluloid sacrifice, Data Rex Machina provides a modern vision of redemption for viewers to risk believing they are worthy of love no matter what images are reflected in their mobile screens. Like the visceral gift of oils and light provided by Van Eyck, Aruta and Pilat provide a positive vision of Creator and created, where viewers can experience a Divine relationship to data and create a positive vision for their lives that is all their own.
