The Totalists

Albion Jeune is pleased to present The Totalists, a solo exhibition by New York-based artist Rachel Rossin (b.1987, West Palm Beach). Comprising paintings and multimedia installations that utilise an AI software that the artist engineered and programmed, the exhibition confronts the exponential pace of technological change—what futurists call "the quickening"—and its impact on human creativity and autonomy. At the heart of The Totalists is the notion of the "black box"—complex, inscrutable systems that profoundly influence our existence while remaining incomprehensible. Rossin's work serves as a portal into this phenomenon, occupying the liminal space between the organic and the technological. By blending references to VR, AI-generated patterns, and traditional painting techniques, the artist visualises the invisible architectures shaping contemporary experience, compelling viewers to confront how these forces infiltrate our bodies, psyches, and identity. Drawing on Moore's Law, which predicts the doubling of computing power every two years, Rossin trains custom AI software employing her own artistic oeuvre as its dataset. The resulting works explore the widening chasm between human comprehension and machine intelligence. Layers of paint mimic glitch effects and screen artifacts, while colour palettes evoke digital interfaces, suggesting how technology has come to function as a nervous system. Rossin's paintings hint at the hidden infrastructure of our digital age—layered landscapes, UI fragments, and ghostly figures that feel both natural and machine-made. These abstracted figures evoke technological pareidolia, prompting viewers to discern familiar patterns and meaning in ambiguous digital-organic hybrids. In this manner, the motifs become stand-ins for the opaque systems governing our lives, from AI systems to social media algorithms, manifesting the tension of living in a world where core decision-making processes are often concealed. "Art is one of the only places that isn't asking you for your data—it's asking you to think for yourself," the artist notes. Each canvas becomes a declaration of creative autonomy—a stubbornly human-made gesture in the face of vast, often incomprehensible technologies. By engaging with themes of creativity, agency, and resistance, The Totalists offers a powerful counterpoint to technological determinism. Rossin seeks to open the "black box," making invisible forces tangible and reaffirming the power of art/human expression to illuminate, provoke, and ultimately empower us in the face of forces that often feel beyond our control. Rachel Rossin (b. 1987, West Palm Beach) is an internationally renowned artist and programmer whose multi-disciplinary practice has established her as a pioneer in the field of virtual reality. Rossin’s work blends painting, sculpture, new media and more to create digital landscapes that address the impact of technology on human psychology, embodiment, sovereignty, and phenomenology.The New York Times has stated “Ms. Rossin has achieved something, forging a connection between abstract painting and augmented perception that opens up a fourth dimension that existed only in theory for earlier painters.” Rachel Rossin's works have been exhibited at prestigious institutions around the world; including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Emerson Contemporary Musuem of Art, KW Institute of Contemporary Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Kiasma Museum of Helsinki, K11: Shanghai, The New Museum, Rhizome, The Hyundai Museum of Seoul, GAMeC of Bergamo Italy, HEK of Münchenstein Basel Switzerland, ‘Kim’ Museum of Riga Latvia, The Sundance Film Festival, The Carnegie Museum of Art and the Casino Museum of Luxembourg. In addition to her artistic practice, Rossin has also lectured at Stäedelschule, Google, MIT, Stanford, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her work has been published in several notable publications, such as "Video/Art: The First Fifty Years" published by Phaidon, "Chimeras, Inventory of Synthetic Cognition" by the Onassis Foundation, and "Chaos and Awe: Painting for the 21st Century” by MIT Press.Rossin's works are in the permanent collection of institutions such as Borusan Contemporary Museum of Art in Istanbul, The Zabludowicz Collection, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her work has been widely covered in the press, including National Geographic, The New York Times, The BBC, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Wired Magazine, and many others.Rossin was recently co-commissioned by the KW Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York to create an installation and digital artwork entitled The Maw Of. This work was also included in Refigured, a group exhibition at the Whitney in Spring 2023. Currently, her site-specific commission Haha Real is on view at the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern in Houston, TX.

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