Artists reclaim art by utilizing AI in three Seoul exhibitions

Arts & Design

Published: 28 Feb. 2024, 17:42

Artists reclaim art by utilizing AI in three Seoul exhibitions

″No Ghost Just a Shell,″ a multimedia art project started by Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno 20 years ago, is now on view as part of Parreno's solo exhibition at Leeum Museum of Art in central Seoul. [LEEUM]

Artificial intelligence is permeating the fine art scene. At least three famous artists are or will soon be holding solo shows featuring artworks that used AI.

Renowned French artist Philippe Parreno premiered a new tower-like work of art equipped with AI that responds to changes in its surroundings and speaks a foreign language in the voice of Korean actor Bae Doona, in his large-scale solo show “VOICES” that opened Wednesday at Leeum Museum of Art in central Seoul.

“Membrane,” the 13.6-meter (44.6-foot)-tall tower structure, is now installed on the outdoor deck of the museum. Equipped with 42 sensors that collect all kinds of environmental data — including temperature, humidity, wind speed, noise level, air pollution and even minute ground vibrations — “Membrane” sends this information via data signals to the museum so that the works installed in the museum can switch on and off or make other changes depending on these variables.

“A fictional character lives in the tower and feels the change of the atmosphere,” Parreno said during a press preview at Leeum on Monday. “And all these 42 sensors together produce the data signals, and these signals are transformed into a language. So the creature slowly starts first to feel and then slowly starts to speak. And I wanted to give the creature a human voice, so I worked with great Korean actress Bae Doona, so now the creature talks through her voice.”

″Membrane″ (2024) by Philippe Parreno, part of his solo exhibition at Leeum Museum of Art in central Seoul [LEEUM]

The artist added that, throughout the years, for each exhibition he always used sensors that he would install outside the museum space “like a little weather station” to link the environmental elements such as the temperature outside with the works inside the museum.

Parreno worked with a linguist to create a new language for “Membrane.”

“The language called ‘∂A’(2024) starts from an untraceable and unintelligible murmur and grows over time to become an entity that speaks,” the museum said in a press release. “This voice oversees the exhibition like a puppet master. And the museum becomes a giant automaton.”

When asked whether AI itself can be an artist, Parreno said, “I think AI is a great tool to compose. I take it as an instrument for composition.”

“Parreno rose to prominence in the '90s, radically redefining the exhibition experience by taking it as a medium and placing its construction at the heart of his process,” Leeum said in a press release. “'VOICES' will be the largest comprehensive survey of the artist to date in Asia, showcasing both existing works from his 30-year career as well as new works created on the show."

"VOICES" will span six spaces within the museum, including the outdoor deck, lobby, M2, Black Box and Ground Gallery, for the first time for a solo exhibition in the museum’s 20-year history.

A still photo from Ian Cheng's new media art piece ″Thousand Lives″(2023) is now on view at Gladstone Gallery in Gangnam District, southern Seoul. [GLADSTONE GALLERY]

Meanwhile, at Gladstone Gallery in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, American artist Ian Cheng, known for his “virtual ecosystem,” since last week has been showing his new work “Thousand Lives” (2023-24), which is a simulation that dramatizes the daily life of a turtle named Thousand, driven by a neuro-symbolic AI model.

His solo exhibition at the New York-based gallery features two works. One is “Life After BOB: The Chalice Study Experience (LABX)” (2021-22), an animation that centers on the life of Chalice, a fictional character who is the first child to grow up with an AI symbiote called BOB. The work was also presented in his solo show at Leeum in 2022.

“Thousand Lives” is being shown in Korea for the first time. According to the artist, who met with the press at the Seoul gallery on Feb. 22, the work is a “slow story achieved by a simulation” about the daily life of Chalice’s pet turtle Thousand, which, driven by a neuro-symbolic AI model, tries to adapt to the environment — Chalice’s messy apartment. It learns the relevance of everything it encounters in terms of its own internal reptilian urges and develops a recognition of the affordances and threats in its environment. If the turtle fails, it dies — but, as the title suggests, it is then reborn with 20 percent of the memories of its previous life.

The gallery said in a press release. “When viewed one-on-one, ‘Thousand Lives’ may recognize your presence and adapt to your precise viewing perspective, giving you a hyper-personalized portal into Thousand’s worldview.”

A painting from Korean artist Noh Sangho's ″HOLY″ series that will be shown at Arario Gallery in central Seoul from Thursday. [ARARIO GALLERY]

Lastly, Korean artist Noh Sangho will show paintings based on images generated by AI in his solo exhibition set to start at Arario Gallery in central Seoul on Thursday.

He presented the paintings for the first time during a group exhibition at the gallery one year ago. At that time, he told the Korea JoongAng Daily, "I gave an AI image generator an image of a residential neighborhood and asked it to place a tube man in it, and then the AI put it on a chimney that I hadn't imagined. I also gave it part of a photo of a snowman and asked it to imagine the rest of it, and it grew it to this huge size. But I didn't use the AI's output verbatim — I edited it, and then I airbrushed the image onto the canvas."

The artist rose to fame for making paintings based on the "shallow, easily reproduced, easily consumed" images he encounters on social media and then posting the paintings on Instagram every day. He would make giant mosaics of the paintings and exhibit them in museums. When asked why he draws digital images by hand, he replied, "To remind people that there is a human filter when we accept digital images.”

He said the AI-based paintings have the same concept. "They are not all done by AI, but done through my body," he said. "I thought, 'Why do I keep drawing [even in a world flooded with digital images],' and then I thought, 'Don't we all live in an in-between state, a life that is neither completely digital nor completely analog, unless the world becomes completely metaverse,' and I wanted to show our lives in that in-between state.”

BY MOON SO-YOUNG [moon.soyoung@joongang.co.kr]