High-tech boosters and Dwemers alike wonder if AI can really be sensed and thought or felt. Pierre Huyghe asks the unpredictable question: What is the machine-like thing about humans? Reflections, impulses, routines: His show at Marian Goodman Gallery in Lower Manhattan, entitled “In Imaginal” suggests how much the so-called artificial intelligence of aliens is indeed.
In Huyghe's 2024 video “Camata,” installed in Goodman, the camera cracks bones in the picturesque desert. This skeleton is the most human being in the scene. Soon, the robot's arms enter the frame and grip the turquoise stone. An autonomous camera will ring whi and focus. The electric reflector adjusts the light. “Kamata” was taken by a human-run robot hybrid crew, amazed by the remains of an unknown young man (probably a soldier of a war in the 19th century) discovered in the Atacama Desert, Chile. It is intended to be a funeral ritual, and the robotic camera takes as much time as examining a man's rotten shoes or curled hands.
“Kamata” is a lonely, emotional artwork, a cruel and vivid picture of human interaction. The algorithm edits the film in real time. The software's motivation is inexplicable. The work is constantly changing, with no beginning or ending.
The acclaimed French artist Huyghe (pronounced Weeg) is known for his impressive environment that blurs the boundaries of art, nature and technology. Since the 1990s, he has given his name by “collaborating” with non-humans. He gave the crab a gold mask for its shell, dyed the legs of a dog called human pink, and attached a living beehive to the head of a naked statue. His current show at Goodman marks the debut of American works, including “Kamata,” which premiered last year at the offsite at Puntadella Dogana, a contemporary art museum within the maritime customs facility. It shows how Huyghe incorporates AI models into inhumane exploration.
Goodman's gallery is dark and spongy. Just seven pieces spread out on the second floor, consisting of two videos, four sculptures and three masks. In a second-floor room, dimmed in red, the only task is the incredible sight of a man in the corner with a glittering plastic shell that covers his face. At seemingly random intervals, the mask (part of the piece entitled “Idiom”) blurs out the nonsense sound produced by machine learning, a series of trills, yaws, and coloring books.
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