Jam Sutton is a British artist exploring the space between technology, portraiture and antiquity. Sutton presents ‘Life inside the wires’, a new collection of digital sculpture and artworks.

Utilising 3d scanning, augmented reality, 3d printing and artificial intelligence, Sutton creates sculptures and artworks exploring the depiction of human existence within digital space and virtual planes.

“I’m interested in the moment of transformation from human to digital form, from physical to virtual. There’s something compelling about capturing a portrait of my subject as three-dimensional data, which I then refine to create sculptural pieces. I’m attempting to record not only the form and contours of flesh, but also the essence of being; portraying human physicality suspended in digital space.”

The work is also looking at what’s under the surface, in the two-dimension works the sculptural fragments are surrounded by dripping organic forms which have been created using deep learning artificial intelligence of the subject’s body.

Sutton uses artificial intelligence in his work, abstracting human identity by using a machine process. Sutton produced thousands of images from the 3d scanned data to train an artificial intelligence neural network. Neural networks are computing systems that operate in a similar way to biological brains. The neural network learns from the input data and then creates a series of new images based on the set parameters. Sutton then uses these forms almost as brush strokes, manipulating them to create swarms of movement and chaos surrounding the fragmented figures.

“The two-dimensional works are almost landscape-like, created from machine learning elements and the human body data, grown in a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) petri-dish laboratory. I see the AI biomorphic forms as shadows of the sculptural figures. They juxtapose the realistic figuration of the 3d scanned data and allow for abstraction of the human figure. The AI distorts perceptions of the human body in unexpected ways.”

Sutton is exploring how digital processes can attempt to portray the body in texture, form and fluidity. The drips emerging from the AI forms are liquid simulations of the pixels bleeding down the image. These biomorphic forms are almost shifting before our eyes, alive and breathing.

An immersive augmented reality installation accompanies the new show, allowing visitors worldwide to experience the artwork in 3d space. The AR installation can be visited by downloading the ‘Jam Sutton Studio’ app on the Apple App Store/Google Play.