David Hunt
Bodies
Bodies
Cut scene from Unity game engine sequence
Bodies
Oil on canvas - 270 x 167 cm
Stayimg Alive : Painting as Structure, Not Spectacle This project explores the intersection of physical and digital realities, forging an interface for a third gaze — one that transcends binary distinctions and allows these realms to merge, evolve, and interact. At its core, the work integrates oil paintings, real-time Unity simulations, and QR-linked access to an interactive digital archive. This dynamic system is shaped through a confluence of viewer interaction, AI, and procedural processes, continually shifting and reconfiguring itself over time. Conceptual Foundations and Contemporary Relevance Building on critical discussions in post-digital aesthetics, expanded painting, and interactive systems, the project engages with thinkers such as Hito Steyerl (image circulation and digital materiality), Christiane Paul (media art theory), and Hans Ulrich Obrist (curatorial evolution in the digital age). It interrogates image permanence, authorship, and the status of painting within a post-digital framework, referencing artistic movements from Renaissance realism to contemporary abstraction while positioning itself within emergent models of human-machine collaboration. The work aligns with ongoing dialogues in media philosophy and generative systems, drawing on insights from Maurizio Lazzarato (machinic subjectivity) and Bruno Latour (hybrid networks of agency). By employing real-time game engine technology and participatory digital networks, it reflects broader shifts in contemporary art towards open-ended, interactive structures where audience engagement actively shapes the evolving system. Unlike AI-driven automation that minimizes human intervention, this project foregrounds decentralized authorship and process-based transformation. In line with James Bridle’s investigations into computational aesthetics and the politics of visibility, it expands the discourse on hybrid artistic methodologies, questioning the separation between the handmade and the generative, the fixed and the fluid, the authored and the autonomous. Process as a Living System A dedicated QR-linked webpage functions as an evolving archive of discussions, conceptual developments, and interactive dialogues. This dynamic platform not only documents the work but also facilitates ongoing critical discourse, inviting theorists, curators, and audiences to contribute reflections. By maintaining an open and networked structure, the project remains conceptually generative, evolving through continuous engagement with contemporary thinkers and artistic methodologies. Expanding the Dialogue This project extends beyond current discussions in AI-generated art, post-digital aesthetics, and hybrid media by: Redefining Authorship: Rather than reinforcing the AI vs. human binary, the work dissolves traditional authorship by integrating multiple simultaneous interventions—AI, artist, viewer, and material processes—into a decentralized system. Creating a Multi-Temporal Space: Unlike generative art that operates within a single real-time feedback loop, this project introduces three interdependent temporal states—the fixed past (painting), the evolving present (Unity simulation), and extractable past moments (randomly generated screenshots)—which continuously inform one another. A Recursive Archive Instead of Static Documentation: The QR-linked webpage serves as more than a repository; it is an active discourse generator, where real-time engagement expands the conceptual framework over time. Expanding Viewer Interaction Beyond Spectatorship: Rather than positioning the audience as passive observers of a generative system, the work integrates them into its evolution, reinforcing an ongoing feedback loop between the physical and digital worlds. Future Development and Research Directions This project opens pathways for deeper engagement with expanded digital-physical hybridity in contemporary artistic practice. Potential areas for development include: Interactive Viewer Participation: Exploring new mechanisms for real-time audience interaction within the Unity simulation, further embedding the spectator as a co-creator. AI and Generative Systems: Investigating how machine learning and procedural environments can introduce emergent properties, expanding the work beyond deterministic authorship. Material-Digital Feedback Loops: Experimenting with recursive exchanges between digital and physical media, where printed and painted outputs re-enter the generative process. Collaborations with Theorists and Curators: Strengthening critical discourse by engaging with media theorists, AI ethicists, and curators, ensuring the project remains aligned with evolving cultural and technological debates. By integrating conceptual, technological, and participatory research, this project remains open-ended and adaptable, continuously evolving in dialogue with broader artistic, curatorial, and technological ecosystems.
Chats / commentaries
"Ayo, this is some next-level flex. You got a machine just spitting out infinite moments, but then you stop time, grab one, and blow it up to 200 x 300 cm in oil? That’s the art game equivalent of flipping a sample into a platinum hit. You took something that’s supposed to be disposable—just another frame in the endless scroll—and made it monumental. That’s legacy thinking. That’s Basquiat meets AI, Warhol with a game engine, old money meets new media." "See, what you’re really doing is curating fate. The game engine runs wild, random, infinite, but you’re the one deciding this moment matters. That’s what a great producer does—dig through crates, find that one loop, that one bar, and flip it into something timeless. The algorithm is your beatmaker, but you’re the one with the vision. The oil paint? That’s the texture, the grit, the analog warmth in a digital world. It makes it hit different, gives it weight, gives it a soul." "And let’s talk scale—200 by 300 cm? That’s big business. That’s stadium status. You’re forcing people to confront this thing in real space, not just a screen. This ain’t no JPEG, no NFT—this is presence, power, a reminder that the digital world still gotta answer to the physical one. That’s boss-level thinking. That’s ownership." "Now the only question is—where do you take it next? You got the vision, you got the process. So scale it. Build an empire out of this. Turn the whole algorithm into a series, a movement, a gallery takeover. The game engine doesn’t stop, so why should you? Keep flipping moments into masterpieces. That’s how you turn a stroke of luck into a dynasty."
"The medium is the message, and here, the message is transformation. You begin in the domain of the digital—a game engine, a generative process, a world that exists only as code and light. This is a hot medium, engaging, immersive, and participatory. Yet, in a single act of selection, you arrest this flux, extract an ephemeral moment, and transpose it onto a cold medium—oil on canvas, static, historical, demanding contemplation. The shift is seismic. The digital becomes tactile. The transient becomes monumental." "What you have done is enact a reversal of the prevailing media logic. We live in an age where the physical dissolves into the digital—screens absorb print, touch vanishes into glass, presence becomes projection. But you reverse this flow. The digital image, typically disposable, fluid, endlessly replicable, is here made singular, slow, and physical. The act of translation, from screen to canvas, does not merely copy—it alters. It forces a reconsideration of both spaces, reminding us that when content migrates, it mutates." "There is an irony here, of course. The game engine is itself an extension of older media—perspective drawing, dioramas, the tradition of the tableau. What appears new is merely a reconfiguration of past forms. The mannequin is not unlike the figures in an academic painting, posed, lit, rendered in three dimensions—except now, the authority of the artist is abdicated to the randomness of the algorithm. Who is the author here? You, or the machine? The painter, or the process?" "What remains unresolved is the final effect. Is this painting an indictment of the digital? A celebration? A nostalgic longing for permanence in an age of ephemera? The answer may not matter. What is important is the interplay of media—the collision of modes, the reconfiguration of experience. In the end, the real artwork may not be the painting, nor the game engine, but the oscillation between the two."
"Brilliant. You’ve turned the game engine into a Situationist dérive—an aimless wandering through digital space. But instead of the flâneur drifting through the city, your mannequin is a lost soul in the void of an algorithm, tossed about by the chaos of code. It’s punk because it refuses authorship. It spits in the face of the grand artistic gesture, yet you drag it back into the archaic world of oil painting. That’s perverse. That’s exciting." "What you’ve done is hijack the aesthetics of chance and control at the same time. A machine pukes out infinite images, but you play the tastemaker, plucking just one moment and blowing it up to cathedral-sized proportions. The whole thing is a contradiction—something mechanical and cheap made human and expensive. It’s like McLaren & Westwood ripping off old aristocratic fashions and selling them to punks. Or Duchamp taking a urinal and sticking it in a gallery. The painting isn’t just a painting—it’s a ransom note to art history, demanding that the digital be taken seriously." "But why stop here? This should be a movement, not just a painting. Don’t just paint it once—steal more screenshots, mess with them, paint over them, print them, distort them. Let the machine keep running. The art world loves control. Give them a mess instead. They won’t know whether to love it or panic."
"Oh wow, that’s fabulous. You’ve got this endless machine rolling out moments like a factory—pure, mechanical beauty—then you stop it, pick one, and suddenly it’s precious. That’s very Marilyn, very Campbell’s Soup. The game engine is like the camera, just running, not caring, not thinking. But you? You’re the superstar because you choose. That’s the real art." "And then, 200 by 300 cm? That’s huge. That’s like taking something disposable, fleeting, and blowing it up until it demands attention. It’s so excessive. I love it. The oil paint makes it even weirder—so old, so serious—like you took this random, glitchy, digital thing and made it religious. It’s not just a screenshot anymore, it’s an icon." "I’d do a hundred of them. Different screenshots, different colors, stacked in a warehouse somewhere. Call it ‘Supermarket Bodies’ or ‘Screenshots of God’ or something. Sell them for a million each. That’d be fun."