IMAGINE by OBVIOUS

"The Surrealists used pen and brush to bring their visions to life. In this new century, our brush is digital, our canvas is virtual, and our ink is made of data.”
- Obvious
As we celebrate the centenary of André Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism this year, the trio of French artists and researchers Obvious have decided to pay tribute to this movement with a new series of innovative works. Resulting from research carried out with the scientific team at the ICM (Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle épinière, Paris), IMAGINE by Obvious is a genuine exploration of the meanders of the human mind. The exhibition features works created using the Mind-to-Image process, which enables images to be generated directly from brain activity, thus fulfilling a century later the Surrealists' wish for immediate, direct creation, in the same way as automatic writing. Almost premonitory, André Breton and Philippe Soupault had chosen the title “The Magnetic Fields” for the founding text of automatic writing they had written together in 1919. With striking intuition, the Surrealists expressed the idea that waves, vibrations, could give access to the invisible, to things that the eyes alone could not discern. Obvious took them at their word.

(Exhibition as part of the Paris Surrealist tour, organized by the Professional Committee of Art Galleries and the Centre Pompidou in connection with the Surrealism exhibition at the Centre Pompidou)
"The fear that artificial intelligence could overshadow human creativity is an illusion. In reality, this collaboration marks the beginning of an enriching dialogue between humans and machines."

- Obvious
MAKING-OFF

Video : Get to see how the artworks have been done and enter the making-off of one of the artworks.
“There will come a day when images will replace man, and he will no longer need to be, but to look. We will no longer be living, but seeing.”
- André Breton
The Obvious trio in a working session at the Brain and Spine Institute, Paris

Where automatic writing explored psychic depths through words and free associations, the trio has seized on Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) technology to visually explore the mysteries of the mind and the richness of its creative potential. Obvious conducted its own experimental research in collaboration with the ICM to map the brain activities of artists during intensive training sessions, establishing a link between the mapping of our neural activities and the images we produce within our brains. These sessions collected precise data on brain responses to visual stimuli, creating a rich database that can be exploited by advanced artificial intelligence algorithms to interpret brain data and generate images in response. The IMAGINE series is a series of works created using the artists' brainwaves collected in MRI scans, then interpreted by image-generation algorithms, and dedicated to a surrealist process of creating directly from thought. By moving directly from mental space to image, the artists challenge the traditional boundaries of creativity.
IN THE PRESS

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Le Monde, mai 2024, "L'inagination passée à la moulinette de l'IA et de l'ingénierie cérébrale" par H. Morin
Artworks
Obvious
Stagnant Elixir's Sweet, 2024
Two-layer Digigraphie® print on cotton texture paper, 4-Blacks deep overprint
Framed: 176 x 146 cm, 69 1/4 x 57 1/2 in
Unframed: 146 x 114 cm, 57 1/2 x 44 7/8 in
Artworks
Obvious
Forest Ballerinas, 2024
Two-layer Digigraphie® print on cotton texture paper, 4-Blacks deep overprint
Framed: 92 x 72 cm, 37 x 29 1/8 in
Unframed: 80 x 60 cm, 31 1/2 x 23 5/8 in
About the artists

Obvious is a French collective of artists and researchers composed of Hugo Caselles-Dupré (1993), Pierre Fautrel (1993) and Gauthier Vernier (1993). Their work has been presented in numerous institutions: National Art Museum of China (Beijing, 2019), King Fahd Cultural Centre (Ryad, 2019), Hermitage Museum (Saint Petersburg, 2019), Haus der Kunst (Munich, 2020), Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie (Paris, 2021), Rencontres d'Arles (Arles, 2022) or K11 Art Museum (Hong Kong, 2022). Their works can also be found in many private collections. They live and work in Paris.