Skip to main content
Algorithmic Assemblages: Do Machines Dream of Art?

Abstract

In approaching Hopson’s work at the intersection of machine and human thought, the use of the abstract is a way to replicate the coding mechanisms required in digital algorithms. By moving away from literal interpretations, these works are fashioned in accordance with the tenants of abstract art movements that seek to reduce objects to simplified forms and patterns. What remains crucial is not to remove too many elements that you end up saying nothing about nothing. Meaningful insight, rather, comes from retaining just enough information so that abstract thought may strip an algorithmic problem, or a creative approach, to something of the essential: industrial screw, string, glass.

DSC_4323.jpg
Cardboard, cotton, embroidery thread, fairy lights, daguerrotypes, paint, copy paper, 2023.

A daguerrotype with half-erased images of Animal feeding relating to Lycaon (Greek mythology)

"My piece tells the story of Lycaon, as told in Ovid's Metamorphoses. I was interested in the incorporation of daguerrotypes and how to conceptualize various figures within the myth as something physical. The resulting piece is almost a miniature set, complete with Zeus, Lycaon, and his son, surrunded by animals feeding and blood dripping." - Megan Cockett

DSC_4144.jpg

Acrylic paper, industrial screw, rock, 2023.

A lithograph with a highly conspicuous portrayal of Screaming that sheds light on Fryingpan Glacier (Wash.)

"I wanted to throw an empty, crumbled piece of paper at the adverb modifying conspicuous because any portrayal of Screaming would too. The medical lithograph meets its own end. As for frying pans and glaciers, here’s a piece of both. In flight." - Dion Kauffman

DSC_4303.jpg

Wood, glass, ceramic, plastic, die cast metal, paper, colored pencils, 2023.

A collection of objects in a vitrine delineating Titmice to aid in the understanding of General Strike, Rome, Italy, 1903

"I loved the idea of doing something with history, and also with objects. I used my rock collection's display case, and objects that I found in antique stores. I drew the titmice." - Monica Oatman

Please click the image to the left to see other angles of the vitrine!