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It all starts with the project Les feuilles de l'arbre qui n'existe pas, which began in 2017 and was done in collaboration with artificial intelligence researcher Romain Trachel. This collaboration focused on image generation programs that implement learning algorithms of the type G.A.N. (Generative Adverserial Network). From the scanned images, a “G.A.N.”, analyses to learn a mathematical representation, latent space that will then be used to generate new images that do not exist. (See more detailed description on: https://developers.google.com/machine- learning/gan/gan_structure.)

In a logic of voluntary servitude, Florian Schönerstedt decides to feed the machine (or the monster). It is a matter of harvesting leaves from plants, which he dries, archives and digitizes. The simplicity of the work constraint associated with the creation of this database is inversely proportional to the amount of work required for its completion. In fact, it is about tens of thousands of images to be made so that the images generated by the machine merge with those of the database. This time is transcribed in the video The human in the loop, gathering several hundred of rush films made by self-filming during the various phases of creating the database. (The human in the loop, an expression used in AI, literally translated as where is the human in the loop. It is used to raise big ethical issues; it also refers to the book “Waiting for robots” by Antonio A. Casilli, extensive investigation of the subject.)

This video forms with a second video broadcasting the process of generations of leaves by artificial intelligence, the installation of the same name: The human in the loop. This infuses the notion of «do-looking to do» into the practice of Florian Schönerstedt. Thanks to this archiving work, new sheets appear, showing pragmatically the use of AI.