Outpoll | Brian Dettmer's Sculpted Books: A Manual Archaeology of Information in the AI Age

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As artificial intelligence generates art from vast, invisible datasets, artist Brian Dettmer offers a profoundly physical counterpoint. His series 'In·Formation' involves the meticulous excavation of meaning from the physical relics of a pre-digital world.Using surgical blades and tweezers, Dettmer transforms outdated encyclopedias, medical texts, and atlases into intricate three-dimensional sculptures. This process of subtraction—never adding new material—reveals hidden illustrations and text fragments, framing them within new, poetic narratives.Where AI synthesizes, Dettmer dissects; his hand is the algorithm, his scalpel the prompt, uncovering the layered histories within a single, tangible source. A carved atlas might expose tectonic shifts beneath borders, while an anatomy book becomes a labyrinth of organs and text.This is visual archaeology, commenting on the obsolescence and resurrection of knowledge. For a creative culture immersed in rapid, automated generation, Dettmer’s work is a vital meditation on the weight, texture, and history of our source material. His fragile monuments challenge the pursuit of infinite information, suggesting that deeper insight lies in looking more carefully at what we already hold, one painstakingly carved page at a time.

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