AICAN + London Contemporary Orchestra

Devin Gharakhanian collaborated with AICAN to produce Untitled from Carl Haplin (2018), a series inspired by Charlie Chaplin photographs and borrowing aesthetics from Renaissance portraits. The series explores the reconstructive transition from photography back to classical portraiture, which yields unpredictable, intriguing, and intermediate forms that both visually and metaphorically converge somewhere between realism and abstraction.

About Devin Gharakhanian, Artist
Devin Gharakhanian (b. 1986) is an artist and experience designer creating in the spaces between architecture, media, and technology based in Los Angeles, CA. A trained architect, Gharakhanian utilizes new media, including artificial intelligence, responsive projection mapping, immersive and interactive virtual reality, augmented reality, amongst other tools, to create immersive environments. His works transform spaces and questions the nature of human relationships with technology. Currently, Gharakhanian is the Chief Evangelist of Digital Spaces, an interactive visualization startup using technology to innovate the real estate marketing experience. He is also the Director of the Architectural Association Visiting School, Los Angeles, an ongoing design-research program that explores sound architecture through virtual reality. Gharakhanian previously held positions at Skidmore Owings & Merrill and the Yazdani Studio.

Tim Bengel, in collaboration with AICAN, and in partnership with HG Contemporary, will debut a diptych titled The Empress (2018), inspired by a painting attributed to Sandro Botticelli titled Portrait of a Young Woman (Simonetta Vespucci). Bengel’s body of work was introduced to AICAN as the “aesthetic” it needed tolearn, and the “inspiration” is grounded in AICAN’s existing knowledge of historically relevant, museum-quality works from the last 500 years.

About Tim Bengel, Artist

Tim Bengel (b. 1991) is a contemporary multimedia artist based in Germany. Bengel has pioneered a technique of applying sand and gold leaf onto a prepared canvas to create intricate urban and natural landscapes. Once completed, Bengel films himself as he moves the canvas to a vertical position, allowing excess material to slide off the canvas and reveal his composition. Bengel renders found and original pictures with his sand and gold technique, transforming motifs into unique, minimalist, and expressive works. Through filming himself, Bengel captures his process with the intention to disseminate over social media, where his videos have a substantial audience, garnering up to 400 million views.

Bengel has received numerous awards including the Florence Biennale’s Lorenzo il Magnifico Special award from the President (2016). He has been awarded 1st Prize at the Art Expo Malaysia (2016), 1st Prize at the Artward International event in Munich (2014), Jugenddesignwettbewerb Hessnatur in Frankfurt (2011). Born in Ostfildern, near Stuttgart, Bengel studied philosophy and art at the University of Tübingen

in Germany.