The fifth edition of Halfrond took place at Hooghouse on the 20th of January. Held during the Saturday of the Eurosonic/Noorderslag Festival, this edition centered around the theme of the Future. Spread across the different rooms of the Hooghouse villa, a range of artists and musicians were featured, all standing at the forefront of the city’s vibrant cultural life—as noted by Art Point Groningen (Kunstpunt Groningen).

This collection of works focused on the use of technology and artificial intelligence.

The original DALL·E first came online to a closed circle of users in January 2021. However, the general public first gained access to the improved DALL·E 2 through an invite-only beta in April 2022, before it was finally opened to everyone without a waitlist on September 28, 2022.

I was part of that invite-only beta and spent many, many hours creating a wide variety of artworks. One of DALL·E’s most unique features was its ability to expand an image beyond its original borders by generating new visual elements that seamlessly matched what was already there. Other programs—like many still used today—can generally render only one image at a time. With this particular version of DALL·E, however, you could continue writing prompts and extend the original image further and further.

This allowed me to create truly large-scale works, with the largest measuring 110 × 360 cm—a piece that represents the total sum of my philosophical and historical knowledge within a single image.

This leads me to believe that, while this particular DALL·E work may not be the first AI-generated image ever created, it may well be the first truly large-scale AI-generated image to have been created and physically printed, ever.

There is a great old bookstore in the Folkingestraat in Groningen City, the Netherlands. I often visited the place to find old books. Stuff you will not find in general book stores. Im a history buff, I love mysterious stories, legends and to question, in general, everything. Over the years I often spoke with the owner when visiting his store. Haggled for better prices, discussed certain topics. As a gesture of appreciation for the good prices, interesting talks and discussions and good collection of old books. I gifted him a print, which he hung up for some time. After that he introduced me to the Summer Saloon exposition. Five works were displayed for six weeks.