Yugen by Martha Fiennes explores the boundaries of a radical new media where art, digital technologies, and film practice fuse together to form new possibilities of creative expression.
She brings to the project substantial experience of filmmaking, visual effects and digital media technology, resulting in a pioneering ‘hybrid’ media with an almost fine art sensibility. The hybrid media utilises generative computer coding technologies to enable a continuous, non-predictable, self-selective visual display. The experience is further amplified by a hypnotic music and sound score written by composer Magnus Fiennes.
Fiennes describes her works as ‘visual evocations’. They evolve and mutate slowly while the work itself makes all decisions as to ‘what happens next’. The ‘narrative control’ is therefore relinquished to the computer engine which powers the work. There is no ‘looping’ or repeat play as in traditional film and video, neither are there any hard ‘cuts’ or edits. Each viewing encounter is spontaneous and unique and offers a highly meditative experience – we might even say the work is ‘alive’.
Yugen premiered at the 75th Venice Film Festival and has been showcased at several high-profile institutions including: the Palazzo Grassi Museum, The Serpentine Gallery with Hans Ulrich Obrist, at LACMA during Frieze LA, Christie’s, New York, where it headed the Art & Tech Summit in 2019 and at the IMAX, The Science Museum, London, in 2019 where it was the centrepiece of an exuberant debate about the future of Art & AI.
Fiennes’ inaugural work utilising this media, Nativity (2011), has been showcased at the V&A; the National Gallery, London; Sotheby’s London and Paris; the Venice Biennale 2017, and The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
Yugen (2018) is a digital, generative, moving-image artwork by Martha Fiennes, film director, writer and artist.
“Martha Fiennes is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and artist. Her multi-layered work is now increasingly informed by technological developments in digital imagery and AI, whilst remaining resolutely the creative expression of a highly gifted filmmaker”.
Fiennes’ latest AI-driven moving-image artwork, Yugen (2018), features the actor Salma Hayek Pinault and was premiered to wide acclaim at the Palazzo Grassi during the Venice Film Festival 2018. Yugen has subsequently enjoyed high-profile showcases, including at The Serpentine Gallery during Frieze London where it was the subject of a discussion hosted by globally renowned curator Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Yugen was screened at LACMA for the inaugural Frieze LA in 2019; at Christies’ New York where it headlined the Art + Tech Summit in 2019; and the at the IMAX, The Science Museum, London, in 2019 where it was the centrepiece of an exuberant debate about the future of Art & AI.
