Welcome to Pareidolia

Lee Oliver

Degree: MFA

Area: Digital Art

Thesis Statement

Pareidolia is the tendency for humans to see faces where there aren't any, like when you stare for too long into paint strokes until people begin to emerge. These images presented here may appear to emulate humanity, but they are simply an illusion dreamt into existence by a computer. Together the computer and I worked to create tens-of-thousands of these beings. I watched the birth of each one and guided the chaotic randomness of each of their children.

It began when I told a computer to learn the word "mask" and depict what it saw.  This initial image, a hollow imitation of humanity, gave birth to even more interpretations of the word and even began to learn new words. After thousands of generations, the beings took form and became made from beeswax, violins, coconut crabs, and other words the computer happened to learn, but under my guiding hand, I ensured the word "human" never entered the list. Their human forms are a coincidence, simply digital pareidolia experienced by a computer. There are no humans here. As the genealogy of random words and their depictions evolved into increasingly complex forms, I gave them a voice and asked them to talk about pareidolia. It soon spoke as if "Pareidolia" was the name of a town and chose to give me the title of this installation, "Welcome to Pareidolia."