Fabian Hampel

'This Ghost Does Exist'
video projection, variable dimensions
23:30 4k Video (Edition of 2+AP)

In „This Ghost Does Exist“ we observe a so-called artificial intelligence, specifically a neural network in the process of performing work. In the film, this neural network addresses the audience directly and challenges them to a thought experiment. The goal of this thought experiment, called collective hallucination in the film, is to calculate a visual appearance for the artificial intelligence which is actually not visible in concrete terms. The basis of these calculations is a dataset of images which was combined under the keyword „Figure“ from various digital museum collections around the world. The word figure has its etymological origin in the Latin fingere or fictum, which means to form, shape, conceive.A fiction, therefore, with the interest to verify the quality of the results of the generative adversarial network. In doing so, to also address the dichotomy between mystical artificial intelligence and the contrasting real-world implications of algorithmic spaces.

9.500 Euro inkl. Tax

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About the artist

Fabian Hampel (b. 1991) deals with contemporary technologies and is interested in linear, reflexive forms as well as abstract borderlands. He asks himself questions like: what if an artificial intelligence had a seizure? His practice often boils down to essayistic video works, which fictitiously approach topics such as algorithm critique or the exploration of unknown perspectives. Formally and visually, the technology in question is often used; in other words, we observe a technology that tells us about itself, while it can also only be understood as an artistic tool. In his video work This Ghost Does Exist (2020), a neural network challenges the audience to a collective hallucination. In the live video sculpture BEFORE HE PAINTED THE WATER LILIES, MONET PLANTED THEM (2017), potentially infinite online videos are summed into a single collage.
Fabian Hampel graduated with honours at the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts, where he studied in the expanded cinema class with Clemens von Wedemeyer and the photography class with Heidi Specker. His work has been shown at Le Fil, Saint-Étienne; Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig or Kunstverein Meißen, among others.