ARCHIVO LAB | Visual Artist 2024

CHRIS LE MESSURIER

British / Australian

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Chris Le Messurier (b 1985) is a photographic artist living in London. In 2023 he completed an MA in Photography Arts at the University of Westminster. His recent research considers algorithmically-influenced aspects of our society, using AI tools to explore a post-human landscape. Thematically, Chris’ photographs and other images tend towards notions of ruin and obsolescence, asking us to consider our position in time. Chris also works as a research assistant and as an educator.

Website

LAB PROJECT

© Chris Le Messurier

Leptis Magna

What is an archive in the age of generative AI models? And how can we assess these models if through their use we become complicit in their improvement? We shape latent space, rebuilding and appropriating culture when we use these tools.

Partial ruins from Leptis Magna in Libya were stolen by the British and now sit as a folly at Virginia Waters, Surrey. Symbols of Empire both ancient and recent are repurposed in their purposelessness, acquiring new signification in their current location. Can we use generative image making in any restorative sense — indeed what other structures and formations can be built  by dreaming with a machine that has scraped the data of our colonising past?