我的当前系列作品名为《旁观者》，运用肖像画来审视围绕技术进步加速及其未来影响的焦虑、希望和不确定性。这些作品的创作始于创建一个包含我作为艺术家的所有作品、影响我的例子以及围绕我创作实践的短暂现象的数百幅图像的数据集。然后，这个数据集被输入到一个设计用来生成与所提供图像一致的新图像的机器学习程序中。当使用大规模、在范围上有限的高度一致的源时，这样的程序可以生成如猫或运动鞋等主题的逼真的人工图像。然而，我这种提供小规模、与个人相关但视觉上不一致的源的非正统方法，意在描绘一个正在进行的创作实践的弧线，产生了对我的作品的高度异常和不规则的解读，这些解读既令人困惑又奇特地熟悉。然后，我以这些模糊的、低分辨率的图像为出发点，重新将它们想象为肖像画。人类的触摸、审视和物质性的重新引入，使我产生了一系列我认为既是一种怪异的自画像，也是一种合作（尽管是与非人类实体的合作）的绘画作品。对我来说，这些肖像经常被读作远处的人物；他们被误解的层层遮盖，寻求人类的连接，但始终无法触及。他们是全新的数字生命形态吗？是被遗弃身体的未来人类化身吗？是警告去人性化未来的幽灵吗？或者他们只是对新兴技术的故意误用的混乱残留物？随着每一幅新肖像的形成，这些问题和其他问题不断积累。

My current series, titled Onlookers, employs portraiture to interrogate anxieties, hopes, and uncertainties around the acceleration of technological progress and its future implications. These works were initiated by creating a dataset of hundreds of images of my entire body of work as an artist, as well as examples of influences and ephemera surrounding my creative practice. This dataset was then fed into a machine learning program designed to generate new images consistent with those provided. When used with a massive scale set of highly consistent sources limited in scope and range, such programs can produce convincing artificial images of subjects such as cats or sneakers. However, my unorthodox approach of providing a small scale dataset of personally linked but visually inconsistent sources meant to illustrate the arc of an ongoing creative practice produced highly unusual and irregular interpretations of my work that were at once confounding and strangely familiar. I then took these murky, low-resolution images as a starting point and reimagined them as portrait paintings. The re-introduction of human touch, scrutiny, and materiality have led to a body of paintings that I regard as both a form of uncanny self-portraiture as well as a collaboration (albeit one with a non-human entity). For me, these portraits often read as figures in the distance; presences obscured by layers of misunderstanding but seeking a human connection that remains beyond grasp. Are they entirely new digital life forms? Future human avatars whose bodies have been left behind? Apparitions warning of a dehumanized future? Or are they simply the confused remnants of an intentional misuse of an emerging technology? These and other questions continue to accumulate as each new portrait takes shape.

约翰·哈伦·诺里斯是一位艺术家和教育者。他的绘画和动画作品探索了肖像画的替代方法，并研究了职业身份、虚拟自我建构和公众形象等概念。诺里斯的作品已在美国各地以及欧洲和亚洲展出，包括最近在苏珊·莫尔曼画廊（肯塔基州路易斯维尔）、克里斯托弗·埃格隆画廊（丹麦哥本哈根）、马丁艺术博物馆（德克萨斯州韦科）、Wërkartz（加利福尼亚州洛杉矶）、KMAC博物馆（肯塔基州路易斯维尔）等地。他的影片在多个场所放映，包括Supernova数字动画节（科罗拉多州丹佛）、美国纪录片和动画节（加利福尼亚州棕榈泉）、蒙特利尔国际动画节（加拿大），以及密尔沃基地下电影节（威斯康星州）。他获得了阿尔·史密斯个人艺术家绘画奖学金，阿肯色州艺术委员会个人艺术家绘画奖学金，以及两项来自大草原基金会的艺术家资助。他曾在Millay艺术殖民地、Willhardt & Naud和佛蒙特工作室中心进行过艺术创作驻地活动。2019年，他的书籍以及配套音轨专辑《Disintegrants》由193研究所出版。诺里斯现居肯塔基州列克星敦，他是肯塔基大学的艺术副教授。
John Harlan Norris is an artist and educator. His paintings and animated works explore alternative approaches to portraiture and investigate notions such as occupational identity, virtual constructions of the self, and public persona. Norris has exhibited his work throughout the United States as well as in Europe and Asia, including recent exhibitions at Susan Moremen Gallery (Louisville, KY), Christoffer Egelund Gallery (Copenhagen, DE), Martin Museum of Art (Waco, TX), Wërkartz (Los Angeles, CA), KMAC Museum (Louisville, KY) and others. His films have been shown at a variety of venues including Supernova Digital Animation Festival (Denver, CO), The American Documentary and Animation Festival (Palm Springs, CA), Montreal International Animation Festival (Canada), and the Milwaukee Underground Film Festival (WI). He is a recipient of an Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship in Painting, an Arkansas Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship in Painting, and two artist grants from the Great Meadows Foundation. He has attended residencies at the Millay Colony for the Arts, Willhardt & Naud, and the Vermont Studio Center. In 2019, his book and accompanying soundtrack album Disintegrants were published by Institute 193. Norris lives in Lexington, Kentucky where he is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Kentucky.