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Artist statement

Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is at the center of many fantasies and polemics, often contradictory. If we focus on the machine, it appears as a computer system both neutral and logical; and yet, it is mainly a mysterious black box full of biases. If we focus on the technological advance, it holds the promise of a safe and wonderful future; but it is also a threat for our freedom as a tool for extended surveillance. If we focus on the external intelligence, it offers to unburden our brains and increase their limited abilities; but for now, A.I. has mostly brought out our worst tendencies…

There might be a common cause for these apparent inconsistencies: A.I. surely imitates some aspects of our reasoning, but what it mimics is mainly our instinctive, non-reflective thinking. In other words, more precisely than an abstract “intelligence”, A.I. should be better described as an artificial unconscious. It questions our own paradoxes of (ir)rational beings.

Which “unconscious” are we talking about here? What does A.I. say about us, humans? What relationships can we foster with this other we are obsessed about?

The complexity of the structures of Artificial Intelligence is too high for our rational thinking to apprehend them as a whole: to encounter another unconscious, we must open ours, and experience this encounter; we must feel the presence of a different thinking, which echoes ours in a disturbing way. Faced with such challenges, only art can help us go far enough.

This motivation fuels my research and my artistic practice, in which I explore the unreasonable fantasies of the machine – and of its creators. I dive into the depths of the neural networks to exhume fragments of tales or visual poetry, and to combine them in a way that intimately resonates with our memories. I weave links between computer science, art history, cognitive sciences, philosophy and psychoanalysis, to propose richer visions of A.I.. I intertwine diverse narratives of the past future or remnants of the future past, in order to open a crack between tales of collapse and ambiguous techno-utopias – only for, hopefully, stir up our own imagination.

Biography

I grew up between snow and sun, in Ubaye Valley, in the heart of Southern Alps (France).

After studying computer science and mathematics at the École Normale Supérieure (Paris), where I specialized in computer vision and artificial intelligence, I discovered the world of start-ups and innovation through several internships, and a pre-doctoral year. In parallel to my studies, I developed my own artistic practice – partly shown on this website – and contributed to several exhibitions and student art festivals.

It is in the search for a sensitive practice of AI that my PhD took shape, in which I explore the irrational territories of machines as well as of our minds, weaving links between computer science, art history, cognitive sciences, philosophy and psychoanalysis.