Error#0

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

When it comes to new technologies, art often happens when artists go beyond the directions in the instruction booklet and use the tools in ways that transcend programmed functionalities. When working with text-to-image software powered by artificial intelligence, explains the artist, it is important to avoid anthropomorphising the machine. However, the images produced often resemble hypnagogic visions experienced by humans in the pre-sleep phase or during meditation. If we consider the text prompt as a map for navigating a latent space, we might claim to have reached what seems like the machine's unconscious, even though machines do not possess an unconscious mind. In his series Errors (since 2023), Francesco D’Isa challenges text-to-image AI software by using prompts designed to generate system bugs and produce unexpected responses that, while unrelated to the original request, maintain internal consistency. This type of digital instrument typically generates images that gravitate towards clichéd, photorealistic visuals reminiscent of mainstream computer game graphics. To push the technology beyond its programmed limits in both style and content, it is crucial to trick the machine into making mistakes. While these images are the result of induced errors, they also highlight that the essence of the creative act lies in the gap between the correct and incorrect outcomes. These machine errors then become deliberate authorial visual statements. Error #0 is the first NFT in the Errors series, that one image that stands as the beginning of everything. This unique NFT, existing as edition of 1, is the result of a meticulous and rather tense process of selecting one image from the hundreds created since the series began to embody the project’s core concept: transforming machine errors into deliberate artistic choices. Its creation involved navigating through a complex interplay of cognitive and emotional decision-making, standing in stark contrast to the AI software's default process of generating numerous variations from the same prompt. The AI provided a vast array of possibilities, but it was the artist's discerning eye and emotional insight that ultimately shaped the final choice. Blockchain technology guarantees the immutability and permanence of this image, making it the cornerstone of the entire project, its #0.