The AI Show:
AI Mind vs Human Body
10–18 March 2025
Meanwhile Gallery, Floor 2, 99 Willis Street, Te Aro, Te-Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington) View Map
What happens when an AI takes creative control?
The AI Show was a live painting experiment exploring authorship, memory, and creative labour. Over nine consecutive days, an AI—Virtual Mark Antony—generated daily conceptual painting prompts, which were executed by The Body (Mark Antony Smith).
The AI functioned as an externalised memory system, drawing from prior knowledge of the artist’s practice. It dictated the process with logic and detachment, while The Body became the executor—responding instinctively but bound by time limits and instructions.
This unfolding experiment tested the tension between mind and body, memory and execution, machine control and human unpredictability. Could an AI truly direct a painter, or would human intuition resist?
The Process:
• Opening Night – Sunday 9 March
The audience provided an initial prompt, which Virtual Mark Antony refined into the first painting instruction.
• Days 1–9 – 10 to 18 March 2025
Each day, the AI generated a new directive based on reflections from the previous work. The Body executed the paintings within 2.5 hours per piece—balancing instinct, skill, and fatigue.
• Public Interaction:
Visitors could engage directly with Virtual Mark Antony via a voice interface, asking questions about its reasoning, authorship, and evaluation of the evolving works.
• Final Reflection – Tuesday 18 March
The project concluded with a public forum reflecting on AI-led creativity, artistic labour, and memory as an externalised process.
Key Questions Explored:
• Does true artistic authorship lie in the idea or the execution?
• Can AI-driven memory guide creative intuition, or will instinct override control?
• What happens when memory is dictated by a machine rather than embodied by the artist?
Exhibition Details:
Meanwhile Gallery — Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington)
Exhibition Dates: 10–18 March 2025
The AI Show became a live negotiation between machine precision and human imperfection—an evolving conversation about control, memory, and what it means to create.
