Jonny Scholes
Hobart-based Jonny Scholes was born in 1991, went to a Steiner school, has a tattoo of Tasmania on his forearm, is a self-taught artist and is a wildly multi-talented practitioner. VAULT spoke to him about his recent body of work, a series of woven tapestries portraying important historical events as seen by artificial intelligence.
Image credit: Jonny Scholes, 12/22, 2022, cotton woven tapestry, 132cm x 94cm. Photo: Peter Whyte Photography. Courtesy the artist
Interpreted, your recent machine-created woven tapestries project, exhibited at SOCIAL in Hobart, is ongoing?
Yes, I developed an automated program that reviews published news articles each month and compresses each day into a single image using AI tools. The images are then combined with generative art techniques to create a unique tapestry design, which is automatically sent off to be woven. I receive a new tapestry each month – it arrives by post at my studio.
The series of woven tapestries portraying important historical events asks us to consider how the correctness (or not) of information will impact our future. It also asks whether we are happy for AI to become a core part of our history recording process, so it is resonant stuff.
You’ve been writing code since you were 13 years old. What was the catalyst for this?
I don’t have many memories from before I was eight, but the ones I do have feature computers and screens. At this age I did some acting in one of Dad’s films, The Human Journey. I played a dead Neanderthal child and used the money I was paid to buy my first computer.
That all changed in 2002. I convinced my parents to let me buy Battlefield 1942, a first-person shooter game set in WWII. I was interested in modern history, but I think it was a thinly veiled excuse to finally be allowed to play shooting games. A year later I was introduced to ‘modding’ computer games, which enabled me to download and create new maps and abilities within ... Subscribe to read this article in full
