World Wind (bitforms gallery)

2022

Digital prints, generative software works

Software works in collaboration with James Schmitz

Exhibited at bitforms gallery, New York

bitforms gallery (link)

World Wind is an exhibition featuring artworks by Marina Zurkow and collaborative, generative pieces by Zurkow and James Schmitz. The title of the exhibition takes inspiration from a mural made by Zurkow in collaboration with Midjourney, an artificial intelligence software that creates images from textual descriptions. Through a prompt by the artist to the software—“World War II agitprop map of pollution and climate change”—World Wind incorporates AI’s perception of climate change with the artist’s guidance, editing, and direction. Zurkow positions iconography representative of ecological transformation within a style reminiscent of lithography and propaganda. Bordered by bold red and thick lettering, the work suggests both a reference to the past and a nod towards an inevitable future. Wind acts as a uniting force of this exhibition. Summoned through open source data and artificial intelligence, wind is a personification of global entanglement and a harbinger of change.