Fantasy for Eleven Fingers juxtaposes traditional art making practices with emerging technologies. Reflected in a series of oil paintings and mixed media, Eric Anderson employed image-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) models, surveillance software, visual encryption and 3D printing in search of prompts for new handmade works.

Advances in technology, especially in the field of AI, promise inhuman, if not impossible, perfection. Fantasy for Eleven Fingers asks viewers to pause when they are confronted with terms like perfect and imperfect, accurate and flawed. How can a painter translate algorithm-based outputs into something that reaches beyond the preconceived limitations of new technologies as well as the artist’s understanding of their own capacities to create? What inefficiencies, accidents, failures, and physical limitations contribute to creating work that is personal? Fantasy for Eleven Fingers considers our uniquely human imperfections as a potential source of freedom.

(above) Momentary Wonder if More Briefly Now, 2019, Oil on canvas, 48″x48″.

(right) Artifice Thus Sets Up Its Splendid Tents in Plain View of the Void, 2019, Oil on canvas, 48″x48″.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts & cultural heritage fund.

Rochester Art Center has initiated a regional art exhibition series in which artists who are awarded Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (SEMAC) emerging artist and advancing artist grants may exhibit their work at RAC in the third floor galleries.