Andy B // The Mass Observation Project // Artificial Intelligence + Deep-Surveillance + the Multiverse // Who is Watching You?
WHO FEEDS THE MACHINE?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) programs are teaching themselves to become smarter by the day, amassing ever more data and a greater knowledge of everything and everyone – but who is feeding the AI machine? Central to the Mass Observation works are the Nightwatchers™ – agents of AI scraping data from the online and offline worlds. With their distinctive camera-like heads and abstract humanoid forms the Nightwatchers™ serve as a metaphor for real-world issues prompting us to question how our data is collected, how it is used … and who controls it.
About the artist
Andy Bullock MFA (aka Andy B), pictured here with a Nightwatcher™ sculpture, is a UK based multidisciplinary artist working across all mediums. He has always been fascinated with all that connects us as human beings, the invisible synaptic threads that make us, intrinsically, us. But now his art practice is firmly refocused on the deep-surveillance societies in which we live and in particular our developing relationship with Artificial Intelligence and its use to influence public opinion in contemporary propaganda. The Mass Observation project explores these issues through the lens of the Nightwatchers™ and challenges the core tenet of our understanding of the balance between security and privacy, the ethical use of technology and the true meaning of freedom in the digital age. To see the artist’s main studio website with full background, exhibition history and all works – click here.
The ‘propaganda paintings’ (series one)
This collection of paintings feature the Nightwatchers™ in abstract-dystopian urban landscapes and utilises the language of authoritarian propaganda to conjure up a dark, future-vision reminiscent of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
The ominous presence of the Nightwatchers™ in such opaque environments challenges the viewer to question their own perceptions of liberty and autonomy in today’s society where we are constantly looking over our shoulders to see who may be watching us. The paintings are all original acrylics on canvas in various sizes – click here to see the collection.
The ‘propaganda paintings’ (series two)
In this series of Nightwatcher™ paintings the propaganda messages are conveyed in bold, bright neo-pop style imagery. The aesthetic is clearly influenced by the artist’s fascination with contemporary graphic communications and branding (today’s 21st century corporate propaganda?) and here he takes the directness of the genre and subverts it with disturbingly simple two and three word messages forcing the viewer to consider and confront uncomfortable truths about surveillance, data privacy and its conflict with our individual freedoms.
The paintings are all original acrylics on canvas – click here to see the collection.
The ‘Nightwatchers™ (by order)’ print collection
This print series evokes the feeling of propaganda messages used by totalitarian and authoriatarian regimes past and present. Some of the messages are from original second world-war political propaganda posters, some are newly created by the artist, and some are written by an AI. The prints are available to purchase via this website – click here to see the collection.
The ‘Nightwatchers™ (witness)’ print collection
In the imagined mythology the artist has created for the Nightwatchers™ these beings have always been present throughout history and, as seen in this print collection, have been witness to many significant moments in human history. From the collapse of the Berlin wall and The Soviet Union to the arraignment of the former US president Donald Trump – but as mere onlookers, guardian angels …. or something more sinister? Click here to see the collection.
Limited edition fine-art prints
We are pleased to announce the release of two strictly-limited editioned print collections – the ‘Nightwatchers™ (by order)’ and the ‘Nightwatchers™ (witness)’ series.
These are the first works from the Mass Observation project to be offered for sale by the artist and will be strictly limited to an exclusive edition of only twenty-five prints.
The artworks are printed using archival pigment inks (giclee) on heavyweight 320gsm museum-quality paper, signed and dated on border, bottom right.
All prints are sold unframed.
The prints in both series are available to order via the online shop by clicking here.
* The print price will rise as the edition number falls.