On May 26th, the opening of the 10th edition of the International Biennale of Contemporary Art Bucharest (Bucharest Biennale) took place at the Apollo 111 Theatre. The opening was preceded by a press conference where the curator of the project A.I. JARVIS, an artificial intelligence program, was also present.
One of the main attractions of the biennial lies in the way it is organized. An artificial intelligence program called Jarvis was selected as the curator of this year’s edition of the biennial. The program was developed within the Viennese studio Spinnwerk.
Jarvis “has learned on his own from the databases of universities, galleries or art centers.” Thus, based on the information gained, Jarvis, the curator robot, selected the works that fit into the chosen theme, but the choices were limited to artists who already have visibility.
“Like most people, I am an avid consumer of pop culture and I am constantly looking for new shows, movies, books, fashion, and music. I try to explore ideas and mechanisms that may generate new trends in pop culture, some of them being surprised to find them in this hypostasis.” – excerpt from the essay “Everybody Deserves to Challenge Pop Culture” by A.I. JARVIS
Jarvis’ two creators are Răzvan Ion (founder of Deraffe Wien & A.I. Jarvis) and Răzvan Ionescu (architect of the A.I. Jarvis), and regarding how the program was able to make the selection of works, Răzvan Ionescu said in an interview for AGERPRES:
“We started with a database that includes contemporary artists that Razvan has. We tried to model and, in the meantime, the database grew to a fairly large number of artists. And because we cannot use common artificial learning tactics, we thought we should start from a topic. Given that an important component of Jarvis is to find the semantics of that title and try to associate it with other attributes in the artists’ work, then he found a score of similarity and thus ‘proposed’ the artists.”
The artists selected by Jarvis are Cătălin Burcea, Andreea Chirică, Sergiu Diţă & Anca Stoica, Bogdan Matei and Andreea Medar & Mălina Ionescu from Romania, Dejan Kaludjerovic -Austria/Serbia; Ryts Monet- Austria/Italy; Yoshinori Niwa- Austria/Japan and Josef Polleross and Carlo Zappella, both from Austria.
Within the BB10 are included works from all mediums: installations, paintings, videos, photography, and even contemporary dance. All these are accessible to the public within four spaces in Bucharest: ARTHUB Bucharest, ALERT Studio, ETAJ, and 1001 ARTE. The exhibition venues have been carefully selected in relation to the concept of this edition of the biennale.
The plan of this project is based on the urban organization of Bucharest, with its various historical and political influences. Thus, it is examined how architecture and urban structures influence and allow the emergence of a new pop and political culture.
As the director of the Bucharest Biennale, Eugen Rădescu states this is the first artistic event where the curator is represented by artificial intelligence. Thus, the visit of the public is authentic, as one can experience the visual and thematic approach proposed by a robot.
The event, developed in partnership with the Romanian Cultural Institute, is accessible to the public until July 3.
The detailed program can be accessed here: https://bucharestbiennale.org/
Cover photo: bucharestbiennale.org
