Babylonian vision – الرؤية البابلية

By: Nora Al-Badri

22/03/2022 – 22/06/2022

Opening: 22/03/2022, 19:00h
Adress: Str.Henrik Bariç, no.10, Prishtinë, 10000, Republic of Kosovo

Al-Badri expands on speculative archaeology and decolonial as well as machine learning based museum practices by generating technoheritage. A pre-trained neural network based on GAN technology (General Adversarial Networks) was trained with 10.000k images from 5 different museum collections with the largest collections of Mesopotamian, Neo-Sumerian and Assyrian artefacts. The images were in the majority collected through web crawling and scraping and without the institution’s approval (even though she asked each museum beforehand) and just two through their open API. Subsequently new synthetic images evolve as a living memory of the images. The generated image is at the same time the artefact itself. Yet, materiality is very important, since the input images are images of material objects of our past. If MI is seen as a technology performing and processing our collective memory it makes sense to apply it to our big cultural data of the past and to generate new images as traces and circulating image worlds. Applying MI to cultural big data supplies other, more speculative and abstract insights on the search for a visual language, form and pattern of an era within a specific spatial context: Babylonian. The input images of these databases carry time and memory themselves (patina, broken pieces, most of them mid- to low-res). Subsequently new synthetic images evolve as a living memory of the images. The generated image is at the same time the artefact itself.

With texts written by:

Prof. Wendy M. K. Shaw, Dr. Fazil Moradi, Dr. Saud Al-Zaid, Daphne Dragona, Dr. Anita Hosseini

*𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘦: 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘩𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘢 17, 𝘛𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘦. 𝘛𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘦, 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘹𝘩𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴, 𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘵. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘩𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘨𝘭𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘺. 𝘝𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴, 𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴.

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This exhibition is supported by the Swiss Cooperation Office in Kosovo and IPKO Foundation.