Simon Denny has made portraits of 26 artificial intelligence engineers, founders and thinkers for New York Magazine’s Power issue, created with Transformer. The Berlin-based artist combines generated imagery with the appearance of ageing videotape. The series, Technologists Portraits, places people building new technologies inside images marked by oversaturated colour and visual distortion.
Artist Simon Denny has made portraits for New York Magazine’s Power issue, created in collaboration with the AI newsletter Transformer. The commission accompanies So Few People, So Much Influence, an article about 26 engineers, founders and thinkers working in artificial intelligence. Denny lives in Berlin, and the resulting series bears the title Technologists Portraits. The project puts those individual faces at the centre of the magazine feature.[1], [2]
The portraits use AI-generated imagery and the visual texture of VHS videotapes. Smiling figures appear against artificial-looking backgrounds, with crackling, oversaturated colours. Denny describes the distortions as traces of technological change. His interest, he says, lies in the stories technology makers tell about themselves and the unfamiliar systems they are building, rather than simply presenting a polished likeness.[1]
Denny represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale in 2015. His exhibition Secret Power converted internet servers into display cases for leaked documents and visual material about intelligence agencies. That earlier work also addressed how technological power becomes visible. The new portraits continue his engagement with art and technology through a magazine commission focused on the people working in machine learning.[1]
