The Digital Gallery: Landscape Forms (The Shape of 26,000 Trees)

The Learning Space is proud to exhibit a digital artwork by Hong Kong-based artist Peter Nelson.

Landscape Forms (The Shape of 26,000 Trees) uses 3D models of trees created using artificial intelligence, specifically Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN).

Expressed using a variety of animation techniques, this work explores GAN-produced forms reminiscent of modernist sculptors such as Henry Moore or Constantin Brâncuși. By exploring machine learning in the context of artistic traditions concerned with the poetic function of landscape, this animation considers how new technologies may inform classical forms in visual culture. The work includes a musical accompaniment by Roberto Alonso Trillo, that uses a GAN system to generate a reworking of Romantic music. 

Showing in The Digital Gallery (foyer of The Learning Space) from Thursday, 12 February to Sunday, 13 March 2022. 

Peter Nelson is a visual artist working at the intersection of landscape theory and computer games. Originally trained in painting and drawing, Nelson produces exhibitions across painting and drawing, animation, 3D printed sculpture and interactive game-based systems. Across these disciplines, he is engaged in a prolonged consideration of the history of landscape images, how they are remediated by technological shifts, and how these shifts absorb and reflect changes in our relationships with the physical environment. He has been working between Australia and East Asia for the past 10 years, and has exhibited in HanArt TZ Gallery (Hong Kong), The National Palace Museum (Taiwan), The Sichuan Fine Art Academy Museum (Chongqing) and the K11 Art Foundation (Hong Kong).