Flower!

about The poetry of perception

With Flower!, Hollenbeq takes a precise look at the relationship between man, machine and perception. The work shows a simple illustration of a pedestal fan, which at first glance appears to be a flower. But what initially appears playful harbors a deeper question: How is our perception shaped by technology, and how often is it deceptive?

Title of the work:

Flower!

Format:

100 x 150 cm

Artists:

Silas Hollenbeq

INITIALIMPULS | Year:

2022

BACKGROUND

A construct, not a reality

Flower! takes up the functioning of artificial intelligence, which is programmed to recognize patterns and assign meanings. The illustration plays with this logic: the shape of the fan turns it into a flower - a misinterpretation that could just as easily be caused by AI as by the human gaze. But behind this apparent transformation lies a serious examination of the limits of digital perception.

The work poses the question of how much of what we see is actually real and how strongly technologies shape our view of the world. What appears to be a banal image becomes the focus of a profound investigation into how we construct reality - and how often we allow ourselves to be deceived in the process.

The limits of the machine

The deliberate irony of Flower! lies in the misinterpretation it addresses. It makes it clear that our technologies, as advanced as they may seem, often work in a simplified and reductive way. Algorithms that recognize patterns do not perceive the world in its complexity, but in heavily filtered, logical fragments. This machine logic projects an artificial reality that is often far removed from the real world. But Flower! goes even further: it makes it clear that we ourselves also adopt these simplifications. The limits of the machine become the limits of our own perception.

WHAT KIND OF WORLD DO WE WANT TO LIVE IN?

More than a critique of technology, Flower! is a cultural statement. It challenges us to question the relationship between man and machine: how much space do we give algorithms to interpret our world? And how often do we allow ourselves to be influenced by their reductive logic? The work reminds us that our technologies, as ubiquitous as they are, were created by humans - and that we are responsible for how they shape the world. Flower! shows that our dependence on machines has not only functional but also cultural consequences.

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