Poetry Machine
Curator

Artists
Ramesch Daha, Carola Dertnig, Eckart Hahn, Raphael Hefti, Verena Issel, Anna Khodorkovskaya, Tomas Kleiner, Justine Otto, Franziska Reinbothe, Leszek Skurski, Heidi Specker, Rosemarie Trockel, Ricardo Valentim, Maja Vukoje

MAY NOT THE SOUL BE AS BALLOONS

The exhibition May Not the Soul Be as Balloons directly references Estelle Hoy’s lead essay, which outlines and defines the content of this year’s Curated by theme: Comedy. Hoy’s text is captured verbatim and transformed into a curatorial concept on a semantic basis.

This is made possible with the help of the AI-based text generator and computer system Poetry Machine, which was invented, developed, and programmed by the artist and media theorist David Link.

Poetry Machine is capable of writing its own reflections, descriptions and texts. It is fed with four or five words and associatively picks out other suitable word and sentence components from the Internet, which it then assembles into complete texts.

This ability has now been used to curate the exhibition May Not the Soul Be as Balloons. 14 short sections from Estelle Hoy’s main essay, mostly consisting of just a few words or sentences, were entered into the Poetry Machine. With the help of its algorithm, it autonomously generated 14 detailed descriptions of works.

On the basis of these work descriptions, 14 artists then created the paintings, sculptures and installations for the exhibition. In the gallery space, the works are arranged in the order in which Poetry Machine wrote the descriptions of the works. Via a sound installation, the visitor hears the texts read by the actress Mavie Hörbiger.