Surrender Machines

Museum Planning
2 min readMar 2, 2023

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Surrender Machine #88, Mark Walhimer, 2023

I am an artist interested in combining digital and physical environments. I have been using DreamStudio to create the images. I would like to have greater control over image creation and to be able to create technical drawings of the images. Then build the sculptures.

Machine learning, algorithms, deep learning

Let’s say today I would like to create an artwork of a machine about collaboration; I would like to create several images describing machines “collaborating.” The closest I can get to this with DreamStudio is to experiment with prompts; this is a recent artwork exploring the topic of “collaboration” and machines;

Surrender Machine #88, Mark Walhimer, 2023

The attached picture looks “lonely” and isolated to me. It is more about “communication” and isolation than about collaborating. The prompts I used in DreamStudio “painterly abstract kinetic surrender machine for a woman, showing how it works with no text, flowers, white on bright orange and pink background, highly detailed” I like the fluid nature of working with DreamStudio. Still, I would like great control to be about to fine-tune the images.

Once I have an image, I would like to be able to create technical drawings of the “machine” (these are not functioning machines). They are machines as metaphors for human interaction (see Surrender Machine #42, Mark Walhimer, 2023).

Surrender Machine #42, Mark Walhimer, 2023

Then once I have a technical drawing to create a photorealistic rendering of the sculpture and build the sculpture combining the digital with the physical representation of “collaboration” (see Digital Sculpture, January 25, 2023, Mark Walhimer, 2023).

Digital Sculpture, January 25, 2023, Mark Walhimer, 2023

Potential Workflow;
1. Create more finely tuned images of human conditions (collaboration, communication, isolation, etc.)(see Surrender Machine #88, Mark Walhimer, 2023 above)

2. Create a technical drawing of the machine to represent the human condition (Surrender Machine #42, Mark Walhimer, 2023)

3. Create a photorealistic rendering of the machine (sculpture)(see Surrender Machine #42, Mark Walhimer, 2023)

4. Build the sculpture.

Please tell me if you have any feedback or suggestions.

Thank you,

-Mark

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Museum Planning

Mark Walhimer is the managing partner of Museum Planning, LLC, and the author of Museums 101 (2015) and Designing Museum Experiences (2021).