The creative, innovative potential of these algorithmically-generated works stems from the artist’s own complex powers of imagination. Rafman’s process begins with text and words; content that is subjected to a calculated, algorithmic process before it ultimately materializes as physical reality.

Consumer technology guides both thresholds of this transformation: CLIP-Guided Diffusion, an image-generating software that converts the artist’s text input into an image, is followed by a printing process that turns the digital image into a material object

The artifice of this technology-mediated lens turns apparently trustworthy, recognizable motifs on their head, exposing them in ever more grotesque detail. The artist plunders the collective archives of our digital memory, altering ordinary, familiar images to create a nightmarish machine delirium.

The character studies on view are inspired by “copypasta” (i.e., funny or provocative blocks of text that are repeatedly copied and pasted in online forums such as Reddit or 4chan) and animated using iPhone facial recognition apps.

The video also draws on established cinema films, including Chris Marker’s La Jetée and Peter Greenaway’s The Falls, though it transposes their formal and narrative possibilities to the emerging Web 3 era.