Solitary_T-Error_
Video, 2023
About the artwork
Modern man is made up of clicks, every day we make several thousand clicks and this sound is like the beating of the heart - a sound that is just as vital, a sound that reminds us that we are still alive.
Our bodies are filled with data and information, and in a sense we have lost our original humanity, our physical avatars merged with our digital appearance. We are now inseparable from our digital reality accounts - X, instagram, metamask, and even your browser history can say more about you than you can about yourself. And on the other side there is the aesthetics of mistakes and failures - when a cold, mechanical machine makes a mistake it becomes a little more human, because it is human to make mistakes. We seem to be changing places, or merging into a single organism, maybe that's what Nietzsche meant when he talked about the Übermensch? I am nostalgic for the past, so I turn to such old interfaces, I look back but time moves me forward and I don't know what awaits my body and mind next. Humans often contradict themselves and make mistakes, but I am concerned with a specific question - if we are truly God's creation how many mistakes has he made in our code?
Audio explanation
Listen to don't Buy discuss this work.
Don’t Buy is a visual artist who creates digital paintings, videos, and GIFs using artificial intelligence and mixed media. Embracing a moniker that itself subverts consumerist language, he approaches art-making with a hacker’s spirit – repurposing AI technology to explore the beauty of errors and the aesthetics of early digital culture. In his work, glitchy abstractions and retro graphics converge to address themes of identity and imperfection in the online era. “When a cold, mechanical machine makes a mistake, it becomes a little more human,” Don’t Buy notes, reflecting his view that technological faults can reveal human qualities. This philosophy underscores much of his art, which often highlights the serendipity of algorithmic mistakes and the nostalgia of outdated interfaces.
A participant in Fellowship’s AI art program, Don’t Buy has presented projects that encapsulate his ethos. Notably, his series 404: SELF NOT FOUND (2024) is an assemblage of AI-generated imagery probing our entanglement with digital identities and the nature of error. Through a mix of dark humor and experimental technique, he transforms mundane clicks and computer glitches into artistic meditation.