TABOR ROBAK
Nuke (2023)
Print between dibond and plexiglass, framed
Tabor Robak (1986, USA) is a Paris-based artist, known for creating multi-channel video installations and procedurally generated animations that have been exhibited in venues such as the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York, the Serpentine Galleries in London, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. His work is included in numerous public and private collections, including those of The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in New York.
Tabor Robak’s work employs the visual vocabulary of contemporary video games and consumer culture to interrogate the role of technology within society. Using the latest digital tools, his work explores how socio–technological forces and how the cultural economy mold our inner cognitive–emotional landscapes.
Already starting out as a Photoshop editor at age 13, Robak, explores a secondary, digital reality, rendered in what he refers to as a “Photoshop tutorial aesthetic” or a “desktop screensaver aesthetic.” His meticulously produced and filmed environments are cobbled together from sources both sampled and hand-modelled.
The works are appropriative, both in their subject matter and aesthetic, using elements purchased and then edited for his purposes. His unique blend of digital and labor–intensive elements as well as high and low culture, has extended into fields such as film, fashion and design.
In recent months, Tabor Robak has been meticulously crafting a series of images, each constructed by editing together hundreds of AI–generated images into a larger composition. His goal is to explore the mixed feelings he harbors towards AI as a creative tool and encapsulate these sentiments within the artwork.
FlatEarth.io (2019)
4K generative animation, custom PC, original software infinite duration, dimensions variable
FlatEarth.io (2019) installed on a 16 screen videowall at Upstream Gallery 4K generative animation, custom PC, original software infinite duration, dimensions variable
FLATEARTH.IO
Within the fiction of the art work, Robak has imagined an artificial intelligence working backwards to recreate scenes of American life and people based on traces of data: bank account ledgers, census data, biographies, etc. The software by the artist generates these families and people, again and again. Like the parable of ‘the blind men and an elephant,’ there is never one true narrative about American life generated by the AI. Every time it loads different data from its database and generates a new perspective on FlatEarth.io. For example, one time it would generate a scene and say “oh, modern American life is like a cartoon with guns”, while with different data it concludes, “oh, modern American life is like a movie about dogs.”
The animated scenes of FlatEarth.io encapsulate in miniature our present-day society. The animation zooms in on strange homes through security-cameralike footage. Robak’s software creates different scenes utilizing many different themed 3D models and other assets. The themes each have their own metaphorical flavor, relating, amongst others, to the negative dynamics of our consumption society. Upon generation, each house is given a bank account with a certain balance. As the scene plays out, itemized expenses and deposits appear on the side of the screen. Robak’s animation is a computer-generated microcosm that makes us aware of grand-scale systems often invisible to us in real life.
In this work, Robak’s political voice is more articulate. In earlier works Robak would hide his political statements under layers of imagery and symbolism, because he was scared of being misunderstood. As a young artist working 70 hours a week with computers and games he was more concerned developing a technical ability than a socio-political one. Living in NYC was the perfect place for the artist to form his thoughts of American society and its people. Robak said, “We are a people evolutionarily formed in the image of global capitalism, a system that radiates out of this city.”
A preview video of the work can be viewed here: https://player.vimeo.com/video/355859950 password: flatearthpreview
TabCorp (2022), 4K live software based animation, custom PC, infinite duration, dimensions variable.
A preview video of the work can be viewed here: https://player.vimeo.com/video/355865779 password: northstarpreview
NORTHSTAR
Northstar is a procedurally generated simulation of an infinite walk through an ever-changing virtual landscape. It brings to mind the ‘walking simulator’ genre in gaming, which has been called ‘gaming’s most detested genre’ because it seems to get the premise of video games wrong. Video games are supposed to be about running around and shooting stuff. After all, the modern form of the medium has trickled down from the military-industrial complex. However, the walking simulator genre is more focused on peace and narrative. Robak has always loved a
walk through the woods. “The natural world is the perfect panacea to the bubbling anxiety of modern life,” he said. Ironically, the artist decided to try to capture this feeling in an endless virtual environment.
By means of User Interface (UI) software, Robak attempts to match the virtual lighting and position of the sun with those in real life. The title Northstar is an optimistic allusion to the human desire to explore and move forward.
Northstar (2019) installed on a 4 screen video wall at Upstream Gallery 4K generative animation, custom PC, original software infinite duration, dimensions variable
Colorwheel (2017) presented at CODA Museum in 2023, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands , as part of the exhibition Behind the Screens , covering 50 years of computer art.
Other participating artists are Carl Andre, Cory Arcangel, Arm Bartholl, Harold Cohen, Petra Cortright, Harm van den Dorpel, Constant Dullaart, Herbert W. Franke, Özgür Kar, Hiroshi Kawano, JODI, Jean-Pierre Hébert, David Hockney, Jan Robert Leegte, Sol LeWitt, Olia Lialina, Peter Luining, Jonas Lund, Manfred Mohr, Vera Molnár, Frieder Nake, Dennis Rudolph, Nam June Paik, Evan Roth, Rafaël Rozendaal, Peter Struycken, Roman Verostko, Damon Zucconi
4K generative animation, custom PC, original software infinite duration, dimensions variable
Follow this link to preview: https://player.vimeo.com/video/153040393
Skypad (2016)
Skypad generates imagery via custombuilt computers. This abstract animation is constantly in the process of constructing itself, layering linear shapes of various widths and complexities. Its slow pace, multifarious forms and color palettes spawn an appearance of textural depth. The result is an artwork that appears perpetually incomplete, forever moving towards an unattainable horizon. The work seems to mimic certain aesthetic elements of traditional painting, but Robak’s intention is not to comment on the history of art. Instead, he attributes those similarities to comparable creative ambitions, resulting in shared compositional and coloristic choices. By re-contextualizing elements of painting, the artist explores the power and potential of computers as active agents in art-making. In a sense, he is teaching machines to paint. Skypad is an ephemeral work, as the composition and color combinations will never appear in the exact same way anymore.
Solo exhibition in 2019, titled MENTAL at VON AMMON CO in Washington D.C. Featuring 9 multimedia works: Neuron, Sour Apple, Cheap-O-Zest, Buzzsaw, Mini Jumbo, Grow Light, Guts, Brain Freeze and Piggy, all works made in 2019.
These multimedia works examine the human mind in conflict with technology. Through a rigorous hands-on fabrication process using metal, wood, electronics, light, paint, vinyl, plexiglass, video, and code, he transplants his virtual object-images into physical space. Works in MENTAL included sculptural video installations, neon multi-media assemblages, and hanging LED screens that display the animated text output of a neural network programed to generate messages about mental health.
A* (2014), 14-channel 7K video, networked media players, 10-minute loop
Shown in 2017 at Kunsthal Rotterdam, The Netherlands for Human/Digital: A Symbiotic Love Affair
