Paul Emery
Ontology of Synthesis A
Paul Emery
Ontology of Synthesis B
Joe Gilmore
Paul Emery
Ontology of Synthesis B
Joe Gilmore
The initial impulse was to explore the possibility of producing a work in which images, texts, and their organisational structures could be synthesised within the same procedural framework. This was less a question of content than of conditions, how material might be produced and encountered without recourse to stable authorship or clear interpretive grounding.
What does Ontology of Synthesis mean to you? Why did you choose this expression?
Ontology of Synthesis refers to the unstable status of works produced through layered processes of construction, where the question of what something is remains unresolved.
The project is divided into Ontology of Synthesis A by Paul Emery and Ontology of Synthesis B by Joe Gilmore. In what way do the two parts dialogue with each other?
The relationship between the two books is not illustrative but structural. The works in A assert a material presence while maintaining a visual flatness, whereas those in B remain physically flat while implying volumetric or spatial extension. The dialogue emerges through this inversion, where each set of works complicates the ontological status of the other, without stabilising it.
What was the specific contribution of each of you? Where do the individual authorships end and where does the collaborative work begin?
The images were created independently. Paul’s images were created quite a while ago – and definitely inspired Joe to start working with AI image-generation as a creative tool. The books were designed by Joe.
What method did you follow to build the book: visual research, writing, graphic experimentation, physical materials, or digital processes?
The books were built on a design concept Joe developed for Erris Huigens (Dimensies, Superpang, 2023). The method for generating the images remains undisclosed.
In the book, abstract images, graphic structures, and theoretical texts seem to coexist. What relationship did you want to create between the visual part and the written part?
The books were structured around the materials which constitute a typical art book: artworks, image captions and critical essays. The text content was generated using different algorithms for splicing together discrete blocks of text based on linguistic patterns.
In the project, the word “synthesis” suggests composition, transformation, and fusion. What is synthesized in the book: images, ideas, forms, or languages?
Everything. Synthesis produces opacity: something assembled but not fully knowable. It is a system that generates being, but not understanding.
How important is the book as a physical object? Do the format, the paper, the page sequence, and the printing form part of the work?
The book is not simply a container for the work but one of its primary conditions. Format, sequencing, paper, and print are integral to how the material is encountered and structured. These elements organise the relationship between images and texts, and determine the pace and mode of engagement. The work is therefore inseparable from its physical realisation, even as it incorporates processes that are not inherently tied to print.
Many images recall networks, organic signs, textures, or complex systems. Where do these forms come from? Are they generated, drawn, photographed, or manipulated?
The being of the work is inseparable from its method of construction. The work incorporates elements of generation and manipulation, but it does not present these as discrete stages. The images are constructed through continuous transformation, such that their point of origin is neither singular nor fully recoverable.
The project seems to move between visual abstraction and theoretical language. Are you more interested in opening up interpretations or constructing a precise meaning?
The method is not transparent, so the being remains uncertain. The project operates through the tension between formal abstraction and the conventions of theoretical language. This tension does not culminate in a precise meaning, nor does it simply invite open interpretation. Rather, it produces a space in which interpretive frameworks are activated but remain insufficient to fully account for the work.
What role did digital tools, software, algorithms, or generative processes play in the realization of the work?
Digital tools, software, and generative processes functioned as the primary structuring framework for the work. Rather than operating as supplementary instruments, they establish the conditions under which both image and text are produced.
The project is organised through procedural systems that structure selection, recombination, and output. These systems do not determine specific results in advance, but they delimit the field within which results can emerge. In this sense, authorship is displaced from direct composition to the configuration of processes.
The tools themselves are not foregrounded as visible elements, but their effects are embedded throughout the work. They operate at the level of construction, shaping both the formal qualities of the material and its degree of legibility.
In your process, do you leave room for chance, error, or the unexpected? Or is the work built through very precise control?
The work does not rely on chance in a traditional sense, nor is it fully governed by direct control. Instead, it is organised through constrained systems whose outputs exceed the limits of their initial conditions. What appears as unpredictability is intrinsic to the structure rather than externally introduced.
How do you imagine the public should read or navigate the book? In a linear way, page after page, or as an open visual archive?
The work is realised through a set of mediated processes in which software and algorithmic structures define both the production and organisation of material. These processes are not presented explicitly, but they condition the form and behaviour of the work throughout.
The visible text in the project uses an almost academic and technical language. Is it a functional text, critical, ironic, or part of the visual composition?
The text does not operate within a single register. While it adopts the conventions of academic and technical discourse, it is not strictly functional, nor does it resolve into a stable critical position. It operates simultaneously as language and as material, contributing to the overall structure of the work rather than serving as its explanation.
Does this project function only as a book or could it also exist as an exhibition, installation, performance, or digital environment?
The project is flexible.
Are there artists, designers, philosophers, musicians, or theoretical texts that have influenced this project?
Not directly.
Why did you choose to publish it with Format Space? What kind of audience do you imagine for this book?
Format Space for us operates at the edge of contemporary art practice and remains open to projects that test the conditions of how work is produced and encountered. Their framework accommodates approaches that do not prioritise clarity or immediate legibility. The question of audience remains indeterminate. The work does not target a specific demographic, but instead presupposes a reader capable of navigating opaque structures without the expectation of resolution.
Do you see Ontology of Synthesis as a concluded project or as part of a broader research that could continue?
The project does not resolve into a clearly delimited conclusion. While the published volumes establish a defined instance of the work, the underlying processes and questions remain operative. In this sense, it can be understood as part of an ongoing line of inquiry rather than a closed body of work.
If you had to describe the book in a single sentence, without explaining it, what would you say?
Generalized-Confined Subspace Learning (GCSL) is a popular technique that aims at learning a subspace for a given input [@tolstikhin2016generalized; @tol2018generalized] by constraining the data distribution to be a sub-Gaussian distribution.