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The new ISOVIST gallery at Yale’s Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (CCAM) provides visitors a firsthand experience at the intersection of art and technology. A brightly colored patchwork quilt displayed in the gallery, which appears to be the work of a skilled hand, originated as an algorithm.

The quilt, handsewn by Robin Kingsbury, is a collaboration between Berlin-based digital artist Anna Lucia and the Gee’s Bend Quilting Collective, an artists’ community in Gee’s Bend, Alabama. The collective continues a local tradition of creating quilts from old work clothes, feed sacks, and other castoff materials.

“Everything on the walls, with a couple of exceptions, is coded art. It is algorithmic in some way and created by someone with software that produces an output,” said Ben Simon, who contributed several works from his personal collection to the show.

Lucia created an algorithm to generate digital quilts blending traditional folk patterns with a modern aesthetic based on descriptions provided by the quilters. Kingsbury’s quilt is one of 500 digital quilts created for a wider series and is based on “Generations #466,” which her son had purchased.

The exhibition "Dimensions of Digitization," curated by CCAM director Dana Karwas and digital-art collector Ben Simon, features pieces in various media — textiles, prints, videos — that are born digital and undergirded by algorithms. It explores extracting unique artworks from the digital world.

“Each piece begins in the digital space where it is frozen in time and then extracted through fairly traditional art processes,” said Karwas. “It was the perfect pairing of digital and physical for our first show in the new gallery space.”

The opening coincided with CCAM’s spring symposium grounded in work happening at its Ultra Space Lab. This interdisciplinary research project engages in critical inquiry into humanity's future off-planet.

Elements of the exhibition have a sci-fi feel consistent with this project. For example, Bulgarian artist Iskra Velitchkova’s “ToSolaris” was inspired by Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 science fiction novel "Solaris." The physical manifestation is composed of abstract shapes against blue, green, and black vertical bands.

Velitchkova described her vision: “After going several times over the book, I broke it up into episodes and began to sketch scenes in code... My goal is definitely not to represent literally the story with code; rather I want to create an algorithm capable of expressing central themes.”

Another work comes from Canadian artist Dmitri Cherniak’s “Light Years” series, which collaborates with Bauhaus artist László Moholy-Nagy's oeuvre. Cherniak used a code-based generative system incorporating motifs from Moholy-Nagy's work to create 100 works printed on film negatives developed as silver gelatin prints.

Karwas contributed a piece reacting to other works on view: a digital cuckoo clock inspired by NASA's "Golden Records." She explained: “I think the Golden Record is one of the greatest examples of an art-science collaboration... launching a record into space is like producing generative art.”

Refik Anadol’s AI-generated data painting “Winds of Yawanawa #804” also features prominently. To create it, Anadol partnered with artists from Brazil's Yawanawa community incorporating their artworks along with weather data into AI software generating swirling colors.

“Our new gallery space showcasing works from Refik Anadol and other exciting artists lets you experience firsthand the intersection of art and technology,” Karwas said.

"Dimensions of Digitization" runs until September 30. The ISOVIST gallery at 149 York Street is open by appointment to both general public (via email) and Yale community members Monday through Friday from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

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