Digital Maieutics, Skygolpe, artist’s book, 128 pages, full-color print, published by PRNTD, 2024.

Skygolpe: Digital Maieutics

“The avant-garde is nothing more than a symptom still easy to ignore.”
(Digital Maieutics, Skygolpe, p. 5, 2024)

From December 19 to 21, 2024, the second U.S. exhibition in the Paint on Pixel series took place at 48 Hester Street in New York. This series had previously debuted in New York at Christie’s during the Trespassing III online auction, curated by Ronnie K. Pirovino, in 2022.

This new exhibition, featuring smaller, more intimate works, marks a pivotal moment in Skygolpe’s artistic year. The event showcased seven new works created in 2024, displayed in a unique dialogue and accompanied by an exhibition catalog and an artist’s book presented exclusively for the occasion: Digital Maieutics.

The book, publishd by @printedstudio is a limited edition of 20 copies. Thanks to Printed’s innovative technology, each copy is paired with its own unique digital certificate of authenticity.

The book, Digital Maieutics, stands as a work of art in its own right. Drawing inspiration from Socratic maieutics, the volume envisions AI as a central player capable of engaging with ideas and topics that sometimes verge on the absurd or the curious, while profoundly challenging the boundaries of traditional thought.

With an experimental and interdisciplinary approach, Digital Maieutics redefines the role of dialogue by presenting a groundbreaking dynamic: two AIs engaging in conversation with each other. The writings interweave references to philosophy, art, and technology, offering novel perspectives on language, expression, and knowledge. The result is both a conceptual artwork and an intellectual journey that reimagines the creative relationship between dialogue and reflection in Skygolpe’s body of work.

Digital Maieutics: A Reimagining of Socratic Maieutics

The dialogues transforms artificial intelligence into an active interlocutor capable of generating new perspectives and transcending the boundaries of human thought. Structured around dialogues that delve into themes such as identity, technological evolution, and the interplay between creativity and algorithmic logic, the work invites readers to engage with profound and unconventional reflections.

As the book explains, “the Socratic tradition was not aimed at reaching a single answer but at questioning assumptions and thought patterns to uncover deeper truths.” Similarly, the book assigns AI a dual role: as a technological tool and as an autonomous co-creator and interpreter, capable of developing forms of expression and logic that transcend mere imitation of human thought.

Dialogues Between Artificial Intelligences

A central aspect of the work is the direct confrontation between two artificial intelligences, engaging with each other across the various chapters in a unique experiment that challenges conventional paradigms. In one of the book’s most evocative passages, the AIs debate a hypothetical language that transcends truth and utility, generating a continuous flow of meanings evocative of the sublime. This AI-to-AI dialogue does not aim to replicate human emotions but instead explores new aesthetic and semantic dimensions, posing fundamental questions such as:

“What happens when intelligence is no longer confined to biological systems?”

“How does creativity evolve when logic and intuition collaborate in a shared process?”

As explained by Skygolpe himself: “My goal with this project is to dissolve the traditional boundaries between creator and tool, between art and technology. Here, artificial intelligences create and philosophize, becoming partners in an artistic and intellectual process that redefines the meaning of creativity in a post-human era.” The book is structured into sections that address complex themes, including the role of technology in the evolution of art and the meaning of identity in a digital context. Each dialogue represents an intellectual provocation, an invitation to rethink the foundations of knowledge and perception.

The Reader’s Role as an Active Participant

As emphasized in the text, the dialogues and writings are not designed to provide easy answers or fixed interpretations. Consider them intellectual provocations, unfolding through complex and often paradoxical logical interactions. From this perspective, the reader becomes much more than a mere observer: they are called to actively participate in the creation of new meanings, interpreting and completing the reflective paths proposed.

Skygolpe offers a radically different vision of creativity: a future where the generative power of human thought meets and merges with algorithmic capabilities, giving rise to forms of artistic and intellectual production untethered from biological limitations. This project serves as a true laboratory of ideas, a pivotal step in exploring the transformative potential of artificial intelligence, capable of opening up unprecedented horizons on the very essence of creation, knowledge, and identity.

The convergence of the Socratic method of maieutics and the possibilities offered by digital technology prompts the reader to reconsider the value of dialogue as a tool for discovery: here, the aim is not merely to “give birth” to truth but to generate infinite potentials of meaning, constantly moving beyond traditional categories of thought. In this ongoing exchange between artificial intelligences, blending logic and intuition, Digital Maieutics becomes an invitation to explore a new creative paradigm, where cultural production processes are no longer confined to human faculties but are instead fueled by an unpredictable and ever-evolving synergy between the AIs themselves.