John Clell Morris Artist & Educator
Project Command Delta
Project Command Delta is the first of two projects that uses the popular fascination with government cover-ups specifically when focusing on the phenomena of the advancement of technologies during the cold war by way of salvaged components from crashed unidentified flying objects. This subject is a vehicle to imagine and contend with image making by artificial intelligence, and the questions it raises when considering the artist as creator and/or curator. In Project Command Delta I reference the issue of the artist hand by selecting certain AI generated images and then deselecting them through the act of hole punching them, a direct reference to Roy Stryker’s destruction of various negatives by photographers working for the Farm Securities Administration during the great depression. Stryker’s act of negating and leaving his mark seemed an elegant way to consider the role of establishing an aura for works that are generated through inputs and machine thinking and then curated by the artist who developed the thoughts and phrases to be produced and considered as works of art.