Enter The Machine is a body of work dedicated to expanding the definition of portraiture to include digital entities, such as files, folders, programs, and information systems.
Begun in 2023, Enter The Machine 3.0 is the first internet-native portrait studio for digital entities. Modeling itself on artist studios of centuries past, where patrons could commission portraits, this studio creates internet-native portraits of digital files, programs, and systems that are interactive, responsive (can be shown in any aspect ratio), scalable, accessible (contain alt-text), and support sound, video, and animation.
Begun in 2016, Enter The Machine 1.0 was Eric’s first attempt at creating portraiture of digital files in a way that does justice to their uniqueness, the diversity of the data they contain, and the complexity by which they are structured. Version 1.0 consisted of nine 48" x 30" illuminated prints. View project.
Evolving in 2018, Enter The Machine 2.0, is a video series that unravels the file encoding process, showing it bit by bit. Version 2.0 consisted of ten programmatically animated videos. View project.
While the history of portraiture in art is long and complex, one trend that has clearly emerged is the ever-increasing democratization of the portrait itself. Initially reserved almost exclusively for royalty and the aristocracy, it was unthinkable that portraiture would be accessible to the public at large. Nowadays, virtually everyone has access to portraiture with the tap of a button on their phone.
But what is the next frontier for portraiture, and who, or what, will be its next subjects? With the looming age of artificial intelligence upon us, will the democratization of portraiture also extend to digital entities? If so, what would that look like?
Enter The Machine situates itself in between these two cultural histories: the centuries-old drive towards the widening definition and accessibility of portraiture and the contemporary need to see more deeply into the structures of our digital surroundings.
Eric Corriel is a multidisciplinary artist living in New York City. After graduating from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, he received a Diplôme National d’Arts Plastiques from the École Régionale Supérieure d’Expression Plastique in Tourcoing, France. Eric currently teaches Artist as Activist at School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he is also Digital Strategy Director.
Eric has been awarded a Digital/Electronic Arts Fellowship from the New York Foundation of the Arts and an Impact Artist Fellowship from the Human Impacts Institute. He has been honored twice as a grantee of the New York State Council on the Arts for his work addressing environmental issues and has twice won a Webby Award for his design work at School of Visual Arts.
Full bio available here.