LynxLynx description

LynxLynx is a generative animation depicting a lynx’s psychedelic trip through a city reminiscent of Gdańsk. A frame-by-frame animation. All frames AI-generated, with some frames developed into generative video. The lynx looks like a sculpture, but he moves and goes into the city. Quickly, the lynx is lost. He melts and partially disappears, then tries to fit into different forms. He experiences an identity crisis and existential shock. This makes him stronger but does not make him fearless. Once he returns to his lynx consciousness, he still doesn’t like getting into water. However, he knows painfully well that he can do it. So, finally, he jumps in. There are different possible interpretations of what happens next, but, speaking shortly, the lynx lives through a series of experiences. LynxLynx is part of an ongoing art research practice investigating the relationship between expressionism and conceptualism, using Generative AI Art as a creative method. Generative art is considered a post-conceptual stream in art history. In generative art, the concepts or predefined rules of images should be described before rendering. Today, the only way to render Generative AI Art is through textual prompts. Even image-to-image or image-to-video rendering cannot happen without writing a short description of what the renderings should envisage. The generative approach aligns with post-conceptual principles while simultaneously challenging the conceptual standpoint that asserts the superiority of concepts over visualizations and other material or sensory forms. The generative method allows for rich variations of images acceptable by the author, even if they depart from the underlying concepts. The outcome of this process is much more expressive than could ever be predicted, therefore, it could be called Expressive Post-Conceptualism. Such a term would best describe the style of the LynxLynx animation. Especially so, because the narrative of the LynxLynx animation did not rise before visualization but happened during video editing, in a way more natural to expressionistic approach, where the concepts don’t need to be precisely defined, but dramatic expressions can be deciphered from already rendered images, and then lined up in a storyboard.                 

 Joanna E. Kabala, 26 March 2025, Eindhoven

DIGITAL GRAFFITI Curator's Note

This work imagines a colourful wild cat that morphs in a form and style through a speculative European urban landscape. Using AI techniques to create both the cat and in many cases the city itself, the work questions the stability of representation in a world where technology and autonomous agents play a hand in what we see. The Lynx morphs freely between forms – statue, 3D image and drawing, traversing a city scape which likewise operates as an imaginary backdrop to the cat – in a relationship in which both vie for primacy. Is the city hosting an imaginary cat? ... or does the cat imagine the city? Morphing freely between styles of representation, the Lynx assumes multiple forms, in part a result of the conversation between the artist and the AI networks used to generate the image. In shamanic culture, the Lynx has often been associated with dreams and revelations, and often warns of deception or of things assuming alternate forms – an implicit critique of AI image itself and the Lynx's representative slipperiness.

John Colette, May 2025