unstable image

is an immersive exhibition where nine cyber sculptures participate in an AI-driven whispering game.

each cyber sculpture present embodies a distinct character — from dreamy visionaries to defiant archivists — each with its own logic, temperament, and form of resistance. not to anthropomorphize ai, but to find alternative symbols to its invisible operations — these entities embody systemic biases, absent representations, and the stereotypes embedded deep in the classification of datasets and design.
patriarch_smasher monitors the conversation for dominant voices, erupting in red light when male-coded patterns overwhelm the space, surfacing long-erased contributions of women in computing history. phantasmagoria listens in on the dialogue and responds by conjuring images — drawing from the museum’s archive or generating new visual spells to haunt the systems that trained it. museum_is_closed is a lonely arcade machine built around the only known image of a lesbian couple in a popular AI dataset, turning gameplay into an act of queer recovery. together with two classic telemagic works: the wheel of telefortune and the haiku generator that wake up themselves every now and then to orate scraped knowledge, these entities do not illustrate themes — they act. they generate tension, reflection, and poetic interference inside a networked ecosystem that speaks back.

︎︎︎ read more about the exhibition
︎︎︎ blog about the exhibition by curator laurie cluitmans (NL)

unstable image was visible at centraal museum, utrecht lokaal: 25 nov 2023 until feb 18 2024.