Bones In The Sky
There’s something about the desert sky that feels both infinite and immediate. It’s a canvas that has inspired artists for generations, and for me, it has become the backdrop for a new collaboration—a dance between the ghosts of the past and the machines of the future.
This October, in Marfa Texas, I’m incredibly excited to unveil Bones In The Sky, a new interactive installation that has been years in the making. It’s a piece that sits at the center of my artistic practice: exploring the distortions between the physical, the photographic, and the artificial.
Dancing with O’Keeffe’s Ghost
The spirit of Georgia O’Keeffe has been a constant companion on this project. I’ve always been captivated by her ability to find the sublime in the stark forms of the desert—especially her paintings of animal bones, transforming them from objects of decay into symbols of enduring life and beauty.
Following in that tradition, I spent months creating the source material for this work. I gathered animal bones and photographed them against the sky, using a mix of 1,500 film and digital cameras.
My goal was to build a unique photographic language, one that the AI could learn from but not perfectly replicate. The work intentionally blurs the line between reality, photographic reality, and an artificial reality, constantly questioning what is authentic. A key to this was using film,
The Experience: A Decisive Moment
The installation itself is where you, the participant, enter the story.
In front of you, a large screen will display a live, ever-changing video feed generated by the StyleGAN AI I trained on my photographs. It’s a latent walk—a dreamlike journey through the AI’s imagination, with bone-like forms dancing and morphing in an artificial sky. The feed is ephemeral; each moment is unique and will never be repeated.
Your role is to be the choreographer of the final moment.
This is not a passive viewing experience. You must act decisively. When you see a frame that speaks to you, you press a large button, instantly capturing that fleeting image. The interaction is a challenge of timing and instinct—a tango between human imagination and machine generation.
Once captured, your moment is transformed. A high-quality, archival printer produces a physical, signed print of your unique creation. This print is more than a souvenir; it’s a tangible bridge to a digital soul. Embedded within it is a key—a unique link that allows you to mint your specific artwork as a permanent, immutable NFT on the blockchain. This process transforms a fleeting digital moment into both a tangible art object and an immutable on-chain token.
When
Find the Installation:
- Where: Marfa, TX
- When: October TBD