The core of the All-Aligned is a custom made random flag generator for infinite identity building.
Contemporary computer programs can generate logos and ads, memes and songs, artistic images, realistic photographs and apstract animations, commercial and political propaganda. The All-Aligned are a software and cultural project in the field of generative algorithmic art, for which I've created such an AI: a generator of infinite random flags, an open source expert system for automated vexillology.
By generating flags, the system also generates an infinite number of micro-identities, which multiply in a fractal manner, dividing themselves ad infinitum. Visualizing the fragmentary nature of our digital lives, the All-Aligned ask: what is a society in which we, as users of digital systems, identify ourselves with automatically generated symbols, a society whose identities are driven by algorithms?
The software was written in Python (back-end) and JavaScript (front-end). The heart of the software consists of digital systems of statistical distributions for mapping semantics to graphics. Ideas and concepts (pirate, Balkan, libertarian, ecological, dark, etc.) are being mapped onto graphic elements (colors, layouts, symbols, new shapes, etc.).
The term “anarchy”, for example, increases the probability that the layout will be diagonal, that the palette will be black and red, and that a graphic version of the anarchist letter A will be extracted from the character base. Similarly, the term “ecological” is associated with shades of green, the term “student” with emblems student campuses, etc.
The project was started during the international artist-in-residence programme They: Live – student lives revealed through context-based art practices. The residency, which was supported by Creative Europe and the Serbian Ministry of Culture, took place in the main student campuses of Belgrade, Madrid, Rijeka, Podgorica, and Novi Sad.
The All-Aligned project was created in Belgrade, the city which is a half century old birth place of a Non-Aligned Movement. It was a global movement against the Cold War, imperialism, and the identitarian division of the world. Yugoslavia played a significant role in the movement. Being born on the eve of the breakup of Yugoslavia and the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the power of the movement was alredy waning, I learned more about the Non-Aligned by travelling in Africa than by living in Serbia. Sometimes it seems to me that what happened locally in my childhood is now happening globally, and that it is mediated by digital systems like these. That's why the mathematical and programming work on All-Aligned was as emotional for me as drawing an image or writing a poem.
There have been three solo exhibitions so far: in Students' City Cultural Centre Gallery in Belgrade, Serbia, in Drugo More Gallery in Rijeka, Croatia, and in Kontejner Space in Zagreb, Croatia. The subproject All-Aligned Bot was shown at the S.U.T.R.A. festival in the Museum of Science and Technology in Belgrade. The All-Aligned was widely written about in Serbian and Balkan press. In the spring 2023. the project will be presented at the Huan Carlos University in Madrid, Spain.
Maida Gruden, coordinator of the They: Live project and SCCC's Head of Visual Arts Department, Andrija Stojanović, producer and SCCCs' associate for international cooperation, Ana Pinter, director and choreographer, Lav Mrenović, curator, and Jelena Pejović, graphic designer, worked with me on this project. I would like to thank Miloš Rančić, Jacques Laroche and Antonije Petrović for technical and programming support.
Also, here is the group of students who, with a help of Ana Pinter and me, created the event All-Aligned in Movement: Teodora Simić, Svetlana Ilić, Teodora Kozomara, Vanja Ivanović, Niks Božović, Teodora Jevtić, Željko Petrović and Miron Petrik Popović.
