decoy is, on the surface, a meditation on the relationship between images and language and an ongoing attempt in the words of Norbert Schoerner – photographer/visualiser/artist - to ‘deconstruct the act of photographic representation.’ The fourteen works, presented here in two rows of seven, girdle the bijou nave of Fitzrovia Chapel (a Way of Sorrows for an unnamed, undefined religion), reveal more on investigation than first exposed and reflect profound and disturbing questions.

“Generative Adversarial Network, or GAN, is a machine-learning framework that can create new data – whether image, sound or video – by analysing and transforming large datasets. It is the technology behind Deepfakes, which have stirred widespread controversy of late for their potential to spread misinformation and cause reputational damage.

Beyond opening our eyes to the aesthetic capabilities of artificial intelligence, he would also like us to reconsider the way in which we connect with art. Referring to ‘this age of sensory and visual overload’, he questions whether we ever spent enough time in front of the same image – or if we’re so accustomed to skimming that we fail to remember with precision. The images we’ve seen become distorted in our minds, like the ones created by his GAN-based system.

He concludes: ‘This inability to hold on to facts and experiences, I want to suggest, limits the extent of our imagination and can be a challenge to our emotional wellbeing.”

- Wallerpaper magazine