Last fall, the artist and musician Holly Herndon visited Torreciudad, a shrine to the Virgin Mary associated with the controversial Catholic group Opus Dei, in Aragón, Spain. The sanctuary, built in the nineteen-seventies, sits on a cliff overlooking an inviting blue reservoir, in a remote area just south of the Pyrenees. Herndon and her husband, Mathew Dryhurst, had been on a short vacation in the mountains nearby. They were particularly taken with an exhibit of Virgin Mary iconography from around the world: a faceless, abstract stone carving from Cameroon; a pale, blue-eyed statuette from Ecuador; a Black Mary from Senegal, dressed in an ornate gown of blue and gold. Moving from artwork to artwork, the couple discussed Mary’s “embedding.” In machine learning, embeddings distill data down to concepts. They are what enable generative A.I. systems to process prompts such as “Cubist painting of a tabby cat, wearing a hot-dog costume and eating a hot dog” or “country application, as a sestina.” At Torreciudad, the sculptures and paintings on display all had aesthetic and material differences, yet there was something consistent—ineffable but essential—that made the artworks legible depictions of the same figure.
This story is from the November 20, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 20, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
COLLISION COURSE
In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.
NEW CHAPTER
Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?
STUCK ON YOU
Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.
HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
REPRISE
Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.
WHAT'S YOUR PARENTING-FAILURE STYLE?
Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.
COLOR INSTINCT
Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
The pro-life movement’ new playbook.
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
