Anicka Yi Ithaqua, 2024

Anicka Yi’s lenticular prints offer a glimpse into a haunting space where the digital and the biological merge. The prints are held in unique artist frames. The imagery is generated from a machine learning model that was fed selective works and reference images from Yi’s archive. By hybridizing her machine learning model with organic images, abstract forms emerge that blur the boundaries between the artificial and the natural, creating a viewing experience that is both familiar and alien.

Central to this series is Emptiness, Yi’s custom software that functions as both a creative tool and a conceptual extension of her studio. Influenced by the Buddhist concept of śūnyatā, which suggests that all things lack inherent substance, the software acts as a “digital twin” of her workspace, autonomously generating new artworks. Using machine learning, it continuously produces shifting, fluid forms, challenging traditional ideas of authorship.

Lenticular printing is a technology that uses lenticular lenses to create printed images with an illusion of depth that can also change the imagery depending on ones point of view. As viewers move around each print, pixelated shapes shift and change, offering glimpses into a dimension where the organic and synthetic merge. This dynamic interaction invites viewers to explore the meeting point between digital and physical, suggesting a reimagined reality where the natural and artificial shape each other, challenging our notions of space and embodiment.

The title refers to a supernatural creature from the novels of fantasy writer H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) which for the artist evoke a time of darkness following the 2024 US election: "I’ve been reflecting on The Call of Cthulhu, global hysteria, and our fascination with fantasy realms—art, mythical creatures, and the mysterious allure of the octopus."

Ithaqua, also known as the Wind-Walker or the Wendigo, is a fictional character in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Within the world of fantasy, Ithaqua is one of the Great Old Ones and appears as a horrifying giant with a roughly human shape and glowing red eyes. The figure is said to prowl the Arctic waste, hunting down unwary travelers and slaying them in a gruesome fashion.