Helena Sarin Joins ARTXCODE

First off, we are so thrilled to have you officially join the ARTXCODE roster! We’ve had the pleasure of working together since 2019 and it seems like everything has been on hyper-speed since. To level-set here, I’d like to start from the beginning. Can you share your journey from Russia to the United States and how your background in engineering and technology influenced your transition into the art world? Were there any key experiences you feel shaped your career along the way?

I grew up in a family of engineers and makers. During the era of Soviet scarcity, my mom often referred, somewhat sarcastically, to the North Korean Juche idea of self-reliance: if you want beautiful clothes, you'd better sew them yourself. I left home at 16 to study at the Moscow University of Civil Engineering. After graduating with an MSc, I started working at a computer center but soon switched to fashion design. To sum up, I consider myself both a maker and an engineer, which is why I now call myself an 'engineering artist,' riffing on the Japanese word 'kogei,' which translates to 'craft' but literally means 'engineered art.'

An Eternal Tangle of What Ifs, 2020. Sarin's first GAN-generated artwork.

Over the years, you’ve become known for training neural networks on your physical artworks. Now, you’re focused on producing physical artworks that are visually inspired by your GAN work. How do you conceptualize and navigate the intersection between analog and digital mediums in your practice?

Anything and everything I do is driven by curiosity — 'What if?' What if I train this CycleGAN that I'm using for my software consulting gig on my vast collection of digital photography? Oh, what a wonderful texture I've created here; it almost looks like a ceramic piece. What if I actually turn it into a ceramic vessel? What if?.

Artificial Blues, a Sketchbook; Etchings of Latentscaux, 2022

Open, Sesame!; Etchings of Latentscaux, 2022

Can you speak about your enduring interest in food and drink styling, as well as fashion and photography?

Everything in this world happens for a reason. I never cooked until we moved to the U.S., and then I started missing the Middle Eastern food I had come to love while living in Israel. So, when I came across the book Mediterranean Greens and Grains by Paula Wolfert, I began cooking — and I haven't stopped since. Paula became my mentor and yet another entrance into pottery as it relates to food. I tested recipes for her Clay Pot Cooking book. She also encouraged me to do the food styling and photography.

Flamenco Dancers, the Red-Hot Latenttuce Cultivar 2021

Humor and wit play a key role in your artistic practice — We love it. Whereas one may see a visual image as ‘the final artwork’, you consider your captions and artwork titles to be an integral part of your compositions. This process has also lead to the creations of zines and books like The Books of GANesis: Divine Comedy in Tangled Representations and The Book of #veGAN - Can you give us some insight into this process and why it’s important to you?

Two things: First, the Russian intelligentsia has long used puns and inside jokes to subvert the absurdity of whatever regime was in power — a tradition that dates back to Pushkin and continues to this day. Second, when I started working with GANs and digital images, I came across a quote about Rauschenberg: “His idea was that a title should not only describe the painting but extend it or add something to it, another (verbal) dimension”. Naturally, my verbal dimension has to carry a comical or sarcastic meaning. Okay, maybe it’s three things — at least when it comes to my abstract work, like latent doodles. For these, I was guided by the words of the amazing Lynda Barry: "Take advantage of a basic human inclination to find patterns and meaning in random information".

The Books of GANesis- Divine Comedy in Tangled Representations 2019

You are an artist that will not be contained to a single creative identity. You’ve recently declared you’re done with minting standalone GAN work and have found a lot of joy in the art of ceramics. Can you reflect on this change of direction and your overall artistic philosophy?

“‘Begin at the beginning’, the King said very gravely, 'and go on till you get to the end, then stop’.” This quote from Alice in Wonderland pretty much defines my trajectory in art and life in general, as well as my philosophy — stay curious, stay free.

Double-Faced Insomnia, 2022

We’re looking forward to the evolution of your practice, so we’ll finish this off with the age old adage: what’s next?

Fun fact: I studied Zen Buddhism in the early 2010s, and Zen pottery was my first foray into working with clay. I don’t practice Zen as a religion, but I strive to live in the present. Right now, that means focusing on potteryGAN and its combination of utilitarian beauty and AI technology.

potteryGAN, 2024

potteryGAN, 2024