Fakewhale Presents AGH1: An AGH Collective Exhibition

During a conversation about AGH1 Dubai, Leander Herzog shared his personal perspective on the project, “I’m trying to design a “viewing experience” on three levels of time – considering the unpredictable state of the art, and the variable attention span of the audience. The first one is just the image one sees when scrolling or walking by. This is very quick, so the art becomes a static image by definition. But it’s also the important entry point for any experience; most people see the art as such, this is how it starts. This is not to say that making a quick first impression with a static would be simple or less challenging to begin with. 

A next level of time is between seconds and minutes. The audience that stops scrolling and engages with the art. Either by following a link to look at the original work on a device, or by sitting down in front of the work in an exhibition space. This is when animation becomes more significant and the work elevates from a static composition to a dynamic, moving system. Rhythm, change and variation come to the foreground.

Beyond that there is a third situation. The work as a longer experience, between minutes and hours, maybe over longer periods of time. That’s for friends, fellow artists, collectors and visitors that come back multiple times. It’s close to the previous one, but comes with more depth and variation. This is where very unique and rare compositions can be observed, in the context of understanding the overall parameter space through observation and exploration. This is for the collector that clicks around on a work during a call. The friend that runs the work on a screen at home and walks by many times per day. Or just me, coming back to it years after it has been released and accepted for what it is. 

All three temporal layers are essential to consider and reveal a different aspect of the work to the viewer. Thanks to the internet, a lot of people see the work for just fractions of a second, for better or worse. But some really watch it change and evolve for many hours, during one day or over the years. The challenge is to design and test this spectrum of variation in a parameter space, in less time than it takes to actually see it.

The experience is unpredictable as a function of its potential to always keep changing. Which is as challenging as it is beautiful and a big part of the nature of this type of work. One can never truly know all its states, just get a feel for the surface area of possibility. And then there is still the danger and hope for something unseen to emerge. Something that has not been there before and won’t ever be reproduced again.”

Complementing the installation, a series of physical prints powered by PRNTD linked to the main project bridges the gap between the digital and physical realms, offering a tangible connection to the generative art processes, while underscoring the fluidity between the digital and physical worlds and enriching the viewer’s experience.