“Górgona” is the result of a set of complex operations derived from the “Complexity Rituals” project in which artist Fernando Velázquez focuses on the decolonial bias of artificial intelligence. The artist trained a StyleGan-type neural network algorithm to create Greco-Roman sculptures, and another to create African masks. Then he inverted the datasets feeding and training the one from the other's database. Thus, artifacts of an uncertain nature emerged from two matrices of thought, the Greek and the African. Four objects created by the algorithm, two masks and two sculptures underwent a process of modeling and 3d printing and subsequent finishing with restoration techniques, giving rise to a set of non-existent archaeological objects, from a future that never happened. In the video, the artist explores the 3d digital files from which these objects were materialized. The four digital molds were textured with the microscopic image of a virus, and articulated in generative processes in order to create metamorphoses and hybridisms. Technology carries the ideologies of who created them. At a time when the ubiquity and pervasiveness of algorithms do not respect borders and guide life, it is urgent and necessary that they operate in complex behaviors that respects the diversity of life on the planet. A gorgon unto itself, technology has the power to expand or hijack us, and being aware of this paradox is the first step in rethinking ourselves as a species.

soundtrack by Cachopou