Tentasho is a procedural artwork that explores the tension between user control and autonomous machine behavior.
Designed as a responsive system, the installation shifts seamlessly between two states: an interactive mode driven by user input on a touchscreen, and an autonomous generative mode that takes over when idle, tirelessly creating and destroying its own compositions.
The work has been featured in significant international exhibitions focusing on artificial life and digital aesthetics. It was selected for ‘Artificial Creators’ at the Eden Project in the UK, and ‘Nonspaces’ at Akbank Sanat in Istanbul, where it was shown alongside works by Ryoichi Kurokawa, Sougwen Chung, and Semiconductor.
Screen recording demonstrating the shift from manual interaction (with interface) to autonomous generation.
Exhibition at the Eden Project, UK (2019)
Installation views from the ‘Artificial Creators’ exhibition.
Exhibition at Akbank Sanat, Istanbul (2016)
Visitors interacting with the installation at the ‘Nonspaces’ exhibition.
The Generative Process
Tentasho
Tentasho is a procedural work by LIA that can be experienced either as an interactive installation on a touch screen or as a self-running generative system on screen or as a projection. In the interactive mode some parameters of the system can be controlled by using the onscreen interface and by inputting gestures on the canvas. The five interface controllers are not explicitly labeled, and the interactions with them or with the canvas bring forth outcomes that are often unexpected and surprising.
The generative mode takes over whenever there is no input from a user. As if the piece is impatient and eager to create new compositions, Tentasho starts acting on its own, creating images — or is it animations, as the images are rarely still? — that explore the system’s phase-state, using variations of the same parameters and controllers that are accessible to users. Yierning to act, Tentasho creates but also destroys, not allowing any composition — its own or the users’ — to persist for long.
Tentasho is strikingly minimal, but not necessarily in a formal sense, as the compositions that are generated can be quite complex and detailed. Tentasho minimalism derives from LIA choosing to work with a single algorithm, a limited chromatic scope, and narrow ranges of variation within a restricted number of controllable parameters, that are tirelessly explored for the countless variations that emerge from them.
Text by Miguel Carvalhais
Project Details
Year Created: 2016
Medium: Generative Interactive Installation
Exhibition History
Artificial Creators, Eden Project, Cornwall, UK (Jun 15 – Sep 29, 2019)
Curator: Blanca Pérez Ferrer
Photography: Ben Westoby (Courtesy of The Eden Project Trust)
Exhibited alongside: Anna Ridler, Jon McCormack, Ian Gouldstone, David Bowen.
Yokyerler / Nonspaces, Akbank Sanat, Istanbul, Turkey (Dec 16, 2016 – Mar 04, 2017)
Curators: Ceren and Irmak Arkman
Exhibited alongside: Ryoichi Kurokawa, Semiconductor, Sougwen Chung, Onformative, Felix Luque, and others.
