At the brink of virtual realities in the eighties of the last century, the possibility of an artist existing in a virtual space was raised alongside virtual art. What belonged to the realm of science fiction and cyberpunk, has now become a reality, as evidenced by the existence of many AI artists at deeep (as seen by the booth of Dead End Gallery for example). The reason deeep is so exciting is because the virtuality of the fair dissolves the classic oppositions between the living and the inanimate, the real and the fictional, and the all too rigid juxtaposition of the tangible and the visible. The first fully virtual art fair, initiated by deeep.art and created by Walter’s Cube, is profoundly thought-provoking, revealing the hybrid, partly organic, partly cybernetic nature of the contemporary art world and of contemporary artistic and creative images. In this sense, hybrid beings and synthetic realities appear in several booths, partly created by real intellects and partly by pre-programmed entities, but always built up from elements of different realities, based on the expectations of the potential recipient. This is why Vadim Fishkin’s work ‘Miss Christmas’, where the shadow of a ‘real’ palm tree emerges from a paint can, is a great emblem for the fair, symbolizing the classic toolkit of illusion. Fishkin’s illusion also makes clear how the reality of artworks is relative, since the image is always created in our minds, or rather in the billions of neurons that run through it.
The virtual tent of the deeep – First Virtual AI Art Fair, 2023
The hybridisation of the organic and the synthetic, the real and the artificial, takes place in multiple ways and on multiple scales at the Deeep AI Art Fair, whose very name invites us on a parallel journey into the depths of human intelligence and the digital image. The exhibitors include both traditionally „living” artists and artificial intelligences „who” create works of art by simulating fictional artistic characters. But there are also artists who consider themselves digital, who use not only digital technology but also artificial intelligence to create images – in effect, hybrid beings. From here, it is easy to move to another related but even more complex virtual-real scale, that of artworks.