Iconoclast is a generative work that transforms the faces of figures holding great power and influence in 2026. Selected by AI tools, the piece extracts these images from videos found online and transforms them through a custom-made algorithm. Drawing on several references including Francis Bacon’s paintings and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, the work reflects on the historical relation between art, portraiture and power.
Iconoclast also references the early photographic experiments of Daniel Canogar in the darkroom. The work evokes the stressed surfaces of prints overexposed to photographic chemicals that generated cracked textures, bubbling effects and the detachment of the photosensitive emulsion. In Iconoclast, the custom-made algorithm dissolves the depth of the videos, transforming the visages of the rich and powerful into eerily painterly gestures of surface matter.
Iconoclast directly confronts the mechanisms that sustain contemporary systems of representing power, pointing to the central role of the image as a device of legitimation in contemporary culture.
Medium: 4K Screen, computer, generative custom software, real-time data, internet connection.