Discover The World Through AI with An Exhibition at the Jeu de Paume in Paris
To better understand the future of artificial intelligence, you must have a grasp on its history. The World Through AI exhibition, taking place at the Jeu de Paume until September 21, provides you with this retrospective through art.
The World Through AI gives 30 artists a space for creation related to those intelligent systems, present in our everyday lives. They express their thoughts on artificial intelligence, covering diverse themes – ethical, cultural, politico-social, ecological and so on – and using a wide array of media such as sculptures, paintings, audio and video recordings… some of which were also created with the assistance of AI.
The show opens with tangible art in a physical space, showing us the material cost of the seemingly intangible AI systems; the very first pieces you will see as you enter the exhibition are sculptures that appear to be rocks. Metamorphism LI, Julian Charrière’s sculptures, are more than that: they are made of artificial lava and melted electronic waste you find in the devices running AI systems.
“We wanted to stress the fact that AI is not at all dematerialized technology”, Ada Ackerman, co-curator of the exhibition, said of the “mineralogical cabinet” used to open the exhibition. “We wanted to make the visitors aware that these technologies are very energy-consuming. Not everyone is aware that a simple request from ChatGPT requires [multiple] glasses of water.”
The exhibition balances on a tightrope of art and commentary, sometimes mocking AI for taking items at face-value (Trevor Paglen, The Treachery of Object Recognition), exposing viewers to the silent horrors of the “ghost workers” of the Global South (Meta Office, Behind the Screens of Amazon Mechanical Turks), or inviting visitors to become part of the art themselves.
One of Ada Ackerman’s favorite works in the exhibition, Hito Steyerl’s Mechanical Kurds installation, is one of the latter. “For me, this is also a metaphor of how, with AI today, all words become taggable objects”, she explains. “The people sitting in the benches [of the installation] also become objects to tag. I think it’s a good metaphor of how AI is changing our relationship and our perception of the world.”
The curator believes the latest developments of AI are “a major anthropological and cultural shift” for today’s society. She believes the exhibition is to be treated as an opening point for conversation and an attempt at better understanding artificial intelligence.
🎧 Listen to our entire interview with Ada Ackerman in the full episode of the High-Tech Intermission available on the World Radio Paris website. It is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other DSPs.
📌 Check out the “The World Through AI” as well. The exhibition will remain available at the Jeu de Paume until September 21, 2025.
