Works

PHI Studio Projet Approximationsof Utopia COVER

After Utopia

A future World Fair reimagined through archives and AI

Artwork

Artificial Intelligence

From

Release year: Scheduled for 2025 (currently in production)
What we did

Production

After Utopia is a work by Marco Brambilla that revisits the grand ideals of Universal Expositions through his long-standing fascination, critical perspective, and subversive approach to our utopian vision of new technologies.

About the experience

Each Universal Exposition embodies a radical optimism and serves as a time capsule for the collective hopes that define its era. They carry within them a belief in the certainty of the future and in humanity’s ability to improve and shape it through invention, intelligence, and entrepreneurship. Each event, and each architectural creation, represents not only the spirit of a nation and society, but also the particular utopian mood of the moment — the specific fears, dreams, and desires of that time.

By dissecting the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning tools in artistic creation, Brambilla seeks to create at the very edge of technology. This is an experimental work that challenges AI to model these historical moments and test its ability to generate populated worlds from our collective memory. Ultimately, it is a work that explores a fundamental philosophical question: what defines us as humans? Our ability to hope.

Marco Brambilla is a London-based artist known for his elaborate recontextualization of popular and found imagery, as well as his pioneering use of digital imaging technologies in video installation and art. Brambilla’s work has been internationally exhibited and is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum (New York); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; ARCO Foundation (Madrid); and the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington D.C).

Notable shows include New Museum, New York; Santa Monica Museum of Art (Retrospective); Seoul Biennial, Korea; Broad Art Museum; and Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul; Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland, Le Centquatre-Paris in France. Brambilla has worked with Creative Time and Art Production Fund in New York to present public art installations, including his Nude Descending Staircase No.3 presented at the Oculus world trade center during Frieze New York.

Notable collaborations include 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, an opera by Marina Abramović first presented at the Opéra National de Paris, France, Pélleas et Mélisande, presented by the Opera Vlaanderen in Antwerp, Belgium; and King Size, a 16k on 16k video collage first presented at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Brambilla is a recipient of the Tiffany Comfort Foundation and Tiffany Colbert Foundation awards.