Exhibition review : « Le monde selon l’IA. L’IA et l’humanité : pour une nouvelle poétique du monde »

The article reflects on the exhibition Le Monde selon l’IA at the Jeu de Paume, which explored the relationship between visual arts and artificial intelligence through more than forty artists. A key feature of the event was the invitation extended to ChatGPT to write both a preface and a critical commentary, positioning AI not only as an object of study but also as a participant in discourse.

Some works interrogated machine vision (Estampa, Nouf Aljowaysir, Nora Al-Badri, Egor Kraft), exposing biases, distortions, and the standardization of representation. Others shed light on the invisible labor of “micro-workers” and precarious populations feeding these systems (Agnieszka Kurant, Hito Steyerl). Finally, several artists explored a critical and poetic aesthetic of AI (Linda Dounia Rebeiz, Sasha Stiles, Érik Bullot), where the machine becomes a creative partner rather than a mere tool.

The exhibition highlighted the political, ecological, and social stakes of AI. The works revealed that behind the apparent immateriality of generated images lie heavy, polluting infrastructures and systems built on human exploitation. AI thus appears as the continuation of a long history of quantification and power.

Beyond the works themselves, the article questions the future role of curatorial practice. AI may contribute to mediation, scenography, or content production, but it also risks normalizing and over-optimizing. Ragazzini thus advocates for a “poetic AI,” deliberately misaligned, capable of generating disruption and stimulating critical reflection.

About the exhibition : https://boutique.cielvariable.ca/collections/numeros/products/ciel-variable-130-plantes-et-jardins?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=launch_130