University of North Texas 
Daniel Pope's work employees traditional documentary/landscape intentional
manipulation of GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) machine learning systems, and 3D
printing sculptural work to emphasize the interaction and increasing interconnectedness
between the visual culture of late-stage capital, the increased aestheticization of the individual,
commodification of contemporary art, and the relationship between the hierarchies and
apparatuses of neoliberal governance and implications on us the governed. Pope's
photographic practice documents the noeliberal landscapes of America ranging from spaces of
economic disuse to spaces of heterotopic future utility and from those representative of soft
political power to the widely varying American domestic exteriors. Often captured at night, these
photographs give little to no human context to the spaces themselves, forcing the viewer to
relate themselves with the photographed landscapes that surround us. Pope's recent work
utilizes outdated and obscure digital imaging technology in conjunction with some of the most
advanced machine learning programs to question the role and form of ‘art photography' in the
age of advanced AI, and how manipulation of said machine learning through antiquated physical
processes can create abstracted yet intriguing results by documenting the very “thought
processes”of GAN systems. The inherent sociopolitical influences on Pope's work can be seen
overtly in his work focusing on American “gun culture” in which the advent of 3D printing and the
sociopolitical potential of homemade firearms in the 21st century are juxtaposed to the
reactionary and repressive tradition of American gun ownership of the 20th century. Varying
through multiple themes and mediums, Pope's work remains anchored in - and focused on -
reacting to the lived realities of the contemporary neoliberal milieu and the apparatuses and
hierarchies of capital, control, and surveillance which dominate all aspects of the
sociopolitical.This, he feels, is the responsibility of art and of the artist, to use all methods of
artistic expression to observe, analyze, and critique any and all of the varying elements of
governance and corporate control and domination.
manipulation of GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) machine learning systems, and 3D
printing sculptural work to emphasize the interaction and increasing interconnectedness
between the visual culture of late-stage capital, the increased aestheticization of the individual,
commodification of contemporary art, and the relationship between the hierarchies and
apparatuses of neoliberal governance and implications on us the governed. Pope's
photographic practice documents the noeliberal landscapes of America ranging from spaces of
economic disuse to spaces of heterotopic future utility and from those representative of soft
political power to the widely varying American domestic exteriors. Often captured at night, these
photographs give little to no human context to the spaces themselves, forcing the viewer to
relate themselves with the photographed landscapes that surround us. Pope's recent work
utilizes outdated and obscure digital imaging technology in conjunction with some of the most
advanced machine learning programs to question the role and form of ‘art photography' in the
age of advanced AI, and how manipulation of said machine learning through antiquated physical
processes can create abstracted yet intriguing results by documenting the very “thought
processes”of GAN systems. The inherent sociopolitical influences on Pope's work can be seen
overtly in his work focusing on American “gun culture” in which the advent of 3D printing and the
sociopolitical potential of homemade firearms in the 21st century are juxtaposed to the
reactionary and repressive tradition of American gun ownership of the 20th century. Varying
through multiple themes and mediums, Pope's work remains anchored in - and focused on -
reacting to the lived realities of the contemporary neoliberal milieu and the apparatuses and
hierarchies of capital, control, and surveillance which dominate all aspects of the
sociopolitical.This, he feels, is the responsibility of art and of the artist, to use all methods of
artistic expression to observe, analyze, and critique any and all of the varying elements of
governance and corporate control and domination.
