Re-Visioning Winona: Art Show by Patrick Lichty at WCHC
August 11 – September 24
Opening Reception | Friday | August 11 | 4-6 pm
Winona County History Center | 160 Johnson St.
winonahistory.org
Re-Visioning Winona: A New Art Show at the History Center Opens Aug. 11
Winona artist, Patrick Lichty, reimagines the sites around Winona through the machine lens in a new art show opening at the Winona County History Center August 11 with a reception 4:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Winona is a historical town with a rich and storied history, from its life on the Mississippi River to its many cultures and industry. But how will it be seen in the future? In Re-Visioning Winona, Artist and WSU professor Patrick Lichty will use drawing machines, 3D laser scanning, and Artificial Intelligence to imagine how Winona might look through the machine lens.
“AI has been a hot issue over the past year from the Lensa selfie app to GPT-4 giving all number of answers, not all of them right,” Lichty states. “I do not take these technologies at face value – they are not ‘smart,’ or even ‘intelligent,’ per se; they are merely extremely complex and mimic us exceptionally well. From that, I do not use technology to replace my skills as an artist; I use them to ask questions about ourselves and our future society.”
In Re-Visioning Winona, Lichty uses many approaches to seeing Winona through a technological lens. This will include images and videos created from photos and recreated through artificial intelligence platforms MidJourneyAI and RunwayML. What happens when you give a machine an image, ask it to give you a description of it, then give that description back to it and ask for a recreated photo? This exhibition will illustrate the process from the initial image to the description of the result.
Another method will be to ask a program to describe your location, given the time, place, temperature, and geography. Bjørn Karmann’s AI ‘camera,’ Paragraphica,’ uses AI to generate an image based on your location data and other descriptors like date and weather. Lichty traveled around Winona, got descriptions of places, fed these to AI platforms, and created snapshots from these locations. What does the Blue Heron look like to a camera without a lens?
In addition to creating images with Artificial Intelligence, Lichty will use 3D laser scanning to capture images of iconic landmarks like the Windom Park fountain and war memorials in Lake Park. Lastly, Lichty will not only print some of these images, but many will be drawn using robots, from 11×17 inches to 4×8 feet – a live demonstration will be given during the exhibition.
“While I use technology to make my art, I do not let it define the art itself,” Lichty states. “I believe that technology shapes the way we see the world, and as someone raised with it, I see it as my natural voice. It’s a way I can talk with the public about innovation, new trends, and how they affect our society. If I did not feel so passionately about this, I would be a plein air watercolor painter, which I am also trained for.”
The exhibit will open at the Winona County History Center on August 11 and will run through September 24. There will be a brief talk at 5 p.m. during the opening. Free and open to the public. Learn more by visiting the Winona County Historical Society online at winonahistory.org or call 507.454.2723.
About Patrick Lichty:
Patrick Lichty is an internationally recognized technological artist, writer, and educator investigating how media shapes how humanity perceives reality. Lichty is known for his solo work, collaborations with his partner Negin Ehtesabian, and numerous international art collectives. He has an MFA in Computer Art from Bowling Green State University, is a Herb Alpert/Calarts Fellow, and is a recipient of the New Century/New Media award from the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. He has also been featured in the Whitney, Venice, and Yokohama biennials and shown in the Sundance, Berlin, and Melbourne film festivals. He is also published with numerous presses, including MIT and Oxford. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Digital Media in the Department of Mass Communication at Winona State University.
Image: A photo near Patrick’s home from Paragraphica: https://camera.sandbox.noodl.app/
A morning photo taken at 661 West Wabasha Street, Winona. The weather is a clear sky with a temperature of 21 degrees c. The date is Friday 9 June 2023. There is a church, church and church nearby.
Patrick Lichty is a member of the River Arts Alliance. The Winona County Historical Society is a member and partner of the River Arts Alliance. To learn more about the benefits of membership, please visit: riverartsalliance.org/membership/.