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alessandro Giannì

MAETERNITY

introduction

I created this web page to privately share my idea about the exhibition with you.
In the rendering there are some works already made and some sketches for the works that I will create. These scketches are still approximate and do not present exactly what I will paint. In the meantime, it will be possible to understand how many works to exhibit and how to set up the exhibition. Scrolling down the page you can see all the details. Good vision!
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ny

SEPTEMBER 2020

concept

In the past the young painters learned the techniques and procedures of painting from the masters, emulating the sign of the master for the realization of the works. This happened in the workshops of the great Masters such as Giotto, Leonardo Da Vinci, Andrea Del Verrocchio, Domenico Ghirlandaio and many other protagonists of the Renaissance. For example Michelangelo created the Sistine Chapel with the help of many assistants who managed to respect his vision and imitate the brushstrokes with the same precision of an algorithm.
In fact, a fundamental part of the project of this exhibition is to develop a software called "VASARI": an artificial intelligence capable of starting a specific creative and conceptual process through the avant-garde technological method of "machine learning", which will be able to contribute to the realization of some works by Alessandro Giannì. The software takes its name from Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), the most important art historian of all time and also a great painter, who lived in the Renaissance period.
This will be the first exhibition where Alessandro Giannì will exhibit some paintings made with the support of a non-human intelligence, which will evolve his skills with the passage of time and which in the future could undertake his own artistic journey, just as the student overcomes the master. This AI, in this first phase of development, will not actively participate in the material action of painting but will constitute an important contribution to the creative process that precedes painting.
The work will be carried out with the collaboration of  of young programmers expert in the creation of software and artificial intelligence, with whom the artist has already collaborated in the past to create other multimedial and VR works.
This AI will study in detail the paintings of Alessandro Giannì and all the creative and conceptual procedures necessary for the realization of these works. In this way VASARI will learn, through the "machine learning", an increasingly interesting composition of the digital sketch, improving his skills every day.
640px-Agnolo_bronzino,_allegoria_di_vene
800px-Hans_Holbein_the_Younger_-_The_Amb
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Digital sketch created manually by the artist by reworking  some images from his archive, 2018
Alessandro Giannì owns an archive of images that has been expanded in recent years, through countless online searches related to his imagination. To create some of his works, the artist collects various aesthetic fragments from the web with the intention of giving them a new existence. Through the digital reworking of these mixed images it is possible to create the basis for an oil painting.
In this way, the analogical practice of the painting merges with the use of new media, with the Internet and digital culture investigating the connections between the digital universe, parallel universes and the dreamlike and introspective world of human beings. In Alessandro Giannì's work there is a reality that is co-produced by two different origins: the binary electronic matrix, which is programmed and repeats itself to infinity; and the human one made of flaws, errors, and weaknesses.
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Multiple Irrealtà, 2018
oil on canvas, 27,5 x 19,5 inches 
The image archive will be studied by the AI ​​and will become a reference point for its learning. The AI will be able to find images from the Web (from Google, Instagram, Paintrest etc.) and will be able to take, mixed and modify these images and create the digital sketch for a painting on canvas. The first images reworked by the software will be modified several times on the basis of other "ideas" suggested by the AI ​​and by other specific indications of Alessandro. The selected sketches will become works that the artist will paint on canvas and will be exhibited at Postmasters Gallery.

Vasari programming phases

The work will be carried out with the collaboration of Weirdo Vanilla, a couple of young programmers (Daniele Monaca) and artist (Cosimo Mollica) expert in the creation of software, with whom the artist has already collaborated in the past to create other multimedial and VR works. This AI will study in detail the paintings of Alessandro Giannì and all the creative and conceptual procedures necessary for the realization of these works. In this way VASARI will learn, through the “machine learning”, an increasingly interesting composition of the digital sketch, improving his skills every day. 
 
For the development of artificial intelligence software, time is one of the constants that makes the difference. The more time you have available to let VASARI learn from his own results and from the artist’s choices, the more the results will be sought and cherished according to the artist’s preferences. The development of VASARI will therefore be divided into several phases to better focus on the variants and details that make the difference in an artificial intelligence. Tests and failures are foreseen in the initial stages and thanks to these lies the assistant will learn the first and most important things, and also the artist will be able to begin to understand the limits and potential of the medium.
Accessibility
User can access the experience through the mobile app (iOS and Android) and any web browser, also from the TV. 
UP IN THE SKY
The user will enter in a cloud web server, offered with speed and 100% Google server reliability.
 
Frontend
User interface built with the most modern technology and the best-looking design, to have an animated but still flawless experience.
 
Backend Solid
Javascript backend will receive the texts and after scraping the web, will download the best looking images from google images.
 
AI Assistant
The images will be svent to the second backend written in Python. Together with Deep and Machine Learning, will modify, transform, cut and finally merge, based on Alessandro’s mind simulation. The software will be able to search for images from the Web (from Google, Instagram, Paintrest etc.) through the inputs and indications provided by the artist. VASARI will be able to observe and modify the fragments of these images and create the digital sketch for a painting on canvas. The sketches will improve over time and will change shape according to the instructions of Alessandro Giannì who will teach VASARI to improve his skills. 
 
Custom API
When the user will write his image-search text, our builtin API will send a request to the backend with the texts in the payload.
 
Outcome
The final image/s developed by the AI will be shown in the frontend followed by a feedback button.
 
Machine Learning
The AI will constantly learn and be trained based on the user and artist feedback.

Database
The images will be stored in a nonrelational database to let the AI have a continuous training system using a deep learning model called Convolution Neural Network (CNN).

Repeat. Better.
The experience will be repeated over and over, but it will never be the same. Every viteration is a small improvement to become the perfect assistant.
The first images reworked by the software will be modified several times on the basis of other “ideas” suggested by AI and other indications of the artist. The selected sketches will become works that the artist will paint on canvas and will be exhibited at the Postmasters Gallery.
 

 
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A first example of an image reworked by Vasari
First version
The first part of the learning will take place in order to produce the sketches for the paintings that will be exhibited. The first part of the software will be developed for this goal. Starting from this experience, we will continue with the development of the software which should be completed in the coming months and which can be expanded over the years.
 

 
The first example of an image modified by VASARI during the software experimentation phase is a representation of Christ from behind. This image will be the main subject of a large format painting that will be created for the exhibition. In addition to Christ, other figures will be added to the work, which will be created with the collaboration of VASARI. In addition to the large format painting, three other works will be created with this procedure and will be the result of the first collaboration between Alessandro Giannì and the new AI (Vasari).

works

The works selected for this exhibition are part of a cycle of paintings concerning art history and the Renaissance. Half of the works exhibited in the show will be works painted by the artist in the past two years. The exhibition will therefore present some works by Alessandro Giannì before his collaboration with VASARI.
The most important of these works is "Maeternità", that was also shown in the RE-NEW exhibition at PostmastersROMA.
In fact, other recurring themes in the artist's research are multiplication, bilocation, the existence of multiple parallel realities and universes, for this reason exposing the same work again in a new context is certainly an operation full of meaning.
 
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       The large black horizontal work and the other paintings on the right wall will be created with the collaboration of VASARI. The images used in this sketch were used only to give a rough idea of ​​the general aesthetic of the show. The real sketches will be created by the software after the first programming phase.

!

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Maeternità, 2017
157,5 x 78,7 inches, oil on canvas, 
Showing the paintings before the collaboration with the AI together with paintings born through her, connects two different periods of Giannì's artistic research and underlines a phase of transition in the contemporary world, that is, the transition to a new era, where AI will be used in all areas.
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Altro Scenario, 2018
35,5 x 27,5 inches, oil on canvas 
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Altro Scenario, 2018
35,5 x 27,5 inches, oil on canvas 
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Untitled, 2017
59 x 78,7 innches, oil on canvas 
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In addition to these works, the new paintings from 2020 will be created through the use of the software.
Vasari's programming had been interrupted immediately after the first test phase (due to work problems arising from COVID-19). Now it is possible to continue programming and the idea is to show the result of the first phase of the "life" of the machine, showing the works through its first learning processes. The project will continue after the exhibition and will evolve improving over time and based on available funds, becoming part of the creative process of Alessandro Giannì.
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alessandrogianni.studio@gmail.com             0039 3338257290

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