David Federico Uttermann
Selected Works
Standing on the shoulders of giants
(The inner twilight)
2019
DMX reflectors, microprocessor, microphone, wooden lectern, book with handwritten texts
Variable dimensions
Light Installation controlled by an application that uses historical climate data in order to estimate the color of sunsets described in poems and quotes by 19th and 20th century artists from different geographical locations.
Death is very much autobiographical
2015 - 2021
Installation with shellac record, gramophone
Variable dimensions
The musical work constitutes a sound translation of a poem written by Adolfo de Sotomayor y Luna, an early 20th century Ecuadorian poet, by
means of recurrent neural networks that allow a text to be translated into musical notes. An algorithm was used that has a database of thousands of songs related to different words, in such a way that it recognizes how different terms have been linked to musical compositions in western culture. In this way, basic melodies were obtained that were then arranged by a composer and later performed by an interpreter. The performance was recorded, mastered and then recorded on a 78 rpm shellac disc. The record id played on an old gramophone.
The Mirror Cracked from Side to Side
2018
Installation
Glitch textiles Variable dimensions
Tapestries based on architectural testimonials of the artist's family, which represent facades of residences from the beginning of the 20th century,
now disappeared in Guayaquil. Descriptions and drawings were made that were vectorized, subsequently, an algorithm was trained with photographs from the Guayaquil’s Historical Archive in order to generate photographs through adversarial generative neural networks. Images were
woven with computer number controlled (CNC) looms.
They’re finally resting
2021
Wax copies of 3D printed faces, CNC wood milling of children’s body, bronze crown.
Variable dimensions
Death masks of the artist's ancestors. A 3D face reconstruction algorithm implemented so to process photographs of the artist's family archive. The resulting images were 3D printed and duplicated in beeswax.
A Wood sculpture representing the artist when he was five years old (made with a CNC Wood milling machine), bronze crown and wax portrait.
A Wax object that represents the face of the artist’s father when he was five years old, the same age alluded in the artist’s childhood sculpture.
Zusammenlesen
(Your Hand should always face
upwards)
2021
Color Composite Powder 3D Print,
Photographs, Embroidery, Reading
Rocking Chair, Newspaper Facsimile
Variable dimensions
A hand 3D reconstruction algorithm was implemented to process a photograph of the artist's grandfather, in order to obtain the volume of his hand. A 3d scan of the hand of the artist’s father was carried out in order to obtain data texture and skin color. In this way, a color 3D composite powder print- ed object was produced, where the data of both relatives are merged. The hand is showed inside of an old box, together with a facsimile of the newspaper that the artist's grandfather appears reading in the aforementioned photograph, as well as in others taken that same day and place. The facsimile was made based on the original that rests in the Newspaper Library of the Municipal Library of Guayaquil.
A 3D reconstruction algorithm was also used to recreate the reading rocking chair that appears in the same image. A 3D print was made with this data. It was then used as a guide for the elaboration of the wooden furniture that is part of this installation.
Two separate silver frames with the original photographs from that day are shown in the installation, as well as a hand embroidered depiction of a home blessing image (Haussegenbild), which contains the popular German saying: “Pure as the clearest of gems is mother's love by itself".
Died an infant
2019
CNC machine, microcontrollers, video camera
Variable dimensions
Installation with a computer numerical control (CNC) machine that writes a letter based on the processing of 400 letters from the artist's ancestors from the 15th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. An application (artificial intelligence) was developed using Long Short-term Memory (LTSM) neural networks, vectorizing the sentences of the letters (many of which narrated daily events), so that it can autonomously generate the content of a letter that has a coherent grammatical and graphological structure. The memories of the senders converge in it. New scripts are generated based on the aforementioned references. The machine loops a possible card, among several.
This installation includes a speculative image of a human face, based on the processing of photographic portraits of the artist’s relatives, fused with fragments of portraits from a database called ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge (ILSVRC). Generative adversarial networks were
used.
32 bit Blush
2018
15 color plates in autochrome frames
1 Black and white print on photographic
paper, colored transparency, light box and microprocessor with motion detection
system
Variable dimensions
Installation based on photographs from the artist's family archive, colorized through adversarial generative neural networks.
Projection system that shows images produced with an application that translates, in real time, the artist's childhood drawings into photographs by means of adverse generative neural networks.
Salt wasn't enough
2018
Mannequin head, projector, microprocessor
Variable dimensions
Selfportrait
2015/2021
Marble skull, marble grapes and antique silver shell plate with stand.
Variable dimensions
Marble sculpture made with an 5-axis computer numerical control (CNC) router, based on a three-dimensional tomography of the artist's skull.
Light of my life
2015
Bronze lamp,, DMX mixer, microprocessor
Variable dimensions
Light installation created from solar activity data corresponding to the artist's day of birth. The 12 hours of sun activity were compressed into a 12-second loop. The data is transmit- ted through an arduino, this information is regulated by a DMX Controller, in order to metaphorically reproduce the transit of the sun through a light bulb.
Da
2012/2021
3D Pring Bronze Duplicate, drawing.
Variable dimensions
Sculpture based on a drawing created by the artist's grandfather, which was translated into a photographic image with adversarial generative neural networks. This representation was processed with a 3d reconstruction algorithm, 3D printed and later duplicated in bronze.
I’d be friends with the sparrows
2014/2021
Ceramic heart, endoscopic camera, microprocessor
Variable dimensions
3D print ceramic duplicate of a tomography of the artist's heart, microprocessor with heart rate detection system and polychrome wooden oratory.
Installation with woven plant forms that evoke the garden of the artist's great-grandmother. Photographs of her family heritage were analyzed through a plant recognition application, which describes the botanical species that appear in the images.
He who speaks sows,
he who listens reaps
2021
Wool flowers (handmade), Singer sewing
machine, copper-framed portraits,
analog photographs
Variable dimensions
A motion detection application controlled by an infrared sensor swaps the famous soliloquy scene from the 1947’s film adaptation of Hamlet to a modified version of the same scene, in which the protragonist is unable to open his mouth and utter the famous words, creating a sense of anxiety due to his inability to speak.
Out of the picture
2015
Video proyection, microcontroller, PIR sensor
“Hiersein ist herrlich” (Being here is wonderful) a verse from Rilke's “Duino Elegies” was scratched in the back of the family armoire mirrors.
The spouses chamber
2012
Installation
Armoire, Photography
Can t see the wood for the tress
2012
Installation
TV Mirror, Video (3’15’’)
A flatscreen was hidden behind a two way mirror. In the video the character behind the mirror is reading the content of a 1922 postcard. The audio was altered in order to make it hard for the audience to understand what the ghostly presence is trying to reveal.
Good penmanship
2012
Installation
Dry flowers, antique books, vitrines,
8mm video (3’15’’)
36 dried flowers found between the pages of many books from my family library, were gathered and placed in library vitrines. Excerpts of a 1956 home video were projected on a hand made quilt together with the vitrines.
Scenes from home movies in which members of my family were captured picking up flowers. Video glitches have been produced in every scene transition.
It's always the others who die
2012
Photography 210 x 160 cm (82,67 x 62,99 )
A photomontage of several burial photographs from family members since the late XIX century.
We are just in lone
2012
Installation
Rocking chair, audio 5’03’’
Some tapes with voice recordings of my grandmother were sent to an uncle who lived abroad. In the tapes my uncle use to get the updates on family matters. Every word of the audio was deleted, and the moments before and after speaking were joined together, resulting in a kind of anxious breathing.
Outside of a dog, a book is always a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.
2012
Installation, Video 28’’
A loop of the ast breath of the artist's pet was shown in a dark hidden corner, usually a dog s favorite get away spot.
Not everything that's gold glitters
2012
Rose petal volume 4,2 x 3,4 cm (1,65 x 1,33 )
Having collected 5 petal rosaries that belonged to 5 women in my family, and using the same method that catholic nuns use to make these rosaries, I managed to join all the rosary beads into a single volume.