Man and machine work together
An intellectually stimulating exhibition with an annoying title, “Is This This That” at Greene Exhibitions contrasts the computer- generated work of Siebren Versteeg and Johannes Bendzulla with 1960s prints and sculpture by Norman Zammitt.
The result is an intriguing meditation not only on the line between human and machine but on the nature of authorship and creativity itself.
Versteeg, the standout, contributes a suite of six canvases that look like variations on the same gestural abstraction— looping black and white squiggles touched with green and purple. Further inquiry reveals they are prints created by software that Versteeg wrote to mimic the gestures, viscosity and texture of brushstrokes.
Hethen created six different such “painters” and ran them simultaneously, directing them to respond to what the other painters were doing. By contrast, the three Zammitt works on view exhibit the precision and regularity we associate with com- puter art but are handmade.
Hard- edged honeycomb patterns in different colors are overlaid off- register to create optical effects that have the sheen of machine fabrication. Together with Versteeg’s computer mimicry of human hands, they approach a vanishing point between person and machine.
The exhibition might have been stronger as a twoperson show. Bendzulla’s use of a randomizer tool to mash images of empty browser windows and icebergs feels forced. He turns the computer on itself, but only to create an empty echo chamber.