“Machine is my muse.” — Jenni Pasanen

Jenni Pasanen has tried everything. Acrylics, ink, clay, watercolor, markers, oils, pulp… The list goes on. Her first (short-lived) foray into digital art was using Paint on a Windows 95 machine. 

When the internet became commonplace, she started taking digital art more seriously, using a Wacom tablet, and familiarizing herself with as many programs as possible. She learned to code. She taught herself 3D animation. But she still felt something was missing in her practice, something she’d been chasing for years. She still hadn’t found it. 

Then she stumbled across the work of photographer and artist Thor Elias, who had recently been minting artist-machine collaborative pieces. Pasanen knew that she had found what she was looking for, if only she could figure out what she was looking at. This is how she discovered Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN), an AI algorithm that uses two neural networks that compete to generate new data based on inputs they are taught. 

Having a rich experience with technology already behind her, she took to GANs quite naturally, and her true artistic voice emerged in the process. 

“What we see in abstract GAN-generated pictures is something we interpret through experiences we’ve had in our lives; therefore, we paint ourselves in all our creations.” — Jenni Pasanen

Pasanen’s process begins with either a direct inspiration from her GAN output or with an original idea she brings to realize with the GAN. In all cases, the GAN is muse and collaborator. She interacts with her GAN for hours on end, coaxing just the right output that will inspire her. When it finally lands, she gets it into her hands to twist, crop, edit, and digitally paint until the piece is unmistakably her vision. 

_“A machine has no emotional limit on what it can create, which leads it to generate things that the human mind could never stumble across on its own. This medium forms the basis of my pieces and opens up my imagination to wilder paths. By combining art and machine learning, we can create something unprecedented and fascinating.” _— Jenni Pasanen 

Nearly two years ago, when generating new images, she noticed shapes that reminded her of a bust with a distorted face. They haunted her. They followed her. She kept coming back to them. She’d fallen in love with their shape, movement, and texture. From there, the idea for the series started to build up: a series of beautiful Beings bound by nature and time. 

The series leans on the idea that everything in nature is divisible by four, which also worked as Pasanen’s guideline to keep it from expanding to infinity. She generated over 300,000 images for the series, and from that, a small percentage were saved and combed through. Even though the idea of fours functioned as a marvelous constraint, the generated images went through multiple iterations, evolving to become what it is today.

“Masks have existed since the Stone Age, and their symbolism varies through centuries and cultures. Their essential characteristic is to hide one’s identity and true emotions, only revealing what the mask maker has decided well ahead of time. Those wearing a mask of Nature and Time are welcome to sway in the razzmatazz of an infinite masquerade.”  — Jenni Pasanen