Smoke and Mirrors
Exhibition, Artificial Intelligence Art
Curated by Merav Maroody
Works by Alexandra Lier, Assi Meshullam, Daphna Keenan, Ilanit Shamia, Nicolai Klemke, Merav Maroody, Lukas Kuhne, Uri Moss
‘Smoke and Mirrors’ is an exploration of the intersection of human-assisted AI art and AI-assisted human art.
Curated by Berlin-based Israeli photographer Merav Maroody, whose work has been showcased in solo and group exhibitions across Israel, Europe, and the USA, this collection brings together a group of artists pushing the boundaries of creativity with Artificial IntelligenceI. Demonstrating the latest advancements in the novel field of AI-powered art, visitors will encounter visual landscapes defying expectations and confronting the specter of fake news. As boundaries between art and technology are blurred, and the future of creativity is being rewritten before our very eyes, ‘Smoke and Mirrors,’ invites us to contemplate the path forward for a more informed and resilient democracy.
Ilanit Shamia and Alexandra Lier utilize AI technologies to recreate their childhood memories, while Assi Meshullam explores the question of whether AI is conscious or unconscious in the short film ‘Nexa.’ One of the central spectacles of the exhibition is a collaborative piece involving Merav Maroody, Uri Moss, Lukas Kuhne and Daphna Keenan, titled ‘There is No Smoke Without a Smoke Machine.’ At the heart of this artwork lies a mesmerizing yet ominous spectacle — the ‘Propaganda Fog Machine.’ Shrouded in mystery and deception, this machine symbolizes the insidious influence of fake news and propaganda on our society.
This text was generated with the assistance of the OpenAI GPT-4 language model.
In a complementary event, Artist Nicolai Klemke will host a workshop on the topic of ‘A.I. video prompting’ on Friday, April 12 and Saturday, April 13, at 4 PM. Participants will collaborate to create AI. music videos. No previous knowledge or equipment is necessary. The workshop will last one hour, and admission is free of charge.
Thu-Sat 4 – 10 PMSun 12 – 4 PM
Radialsystem Studio 2
Free Admission
BIOGRAPHIES
Merav Maroody is a set and drama photographer who graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem. She has worked on various film productions in the US, Europe and Israel for the past 20 years and is the editor-in-chief of the art magazine Ms.Use. While working on a small Hollywood production in Los Angeles, she was discovered by one of the producers at Sony Pictures and for the next five years was one of Sony’s top five set photographers in Europe. Over the course of her career, she has worked with cinematographers such as Douglas Milsome and actors such as David Hasselhof, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Stephen Rea and others. Today she has a studio in Berlin. Merav Maroody has been awarded the Kolga Tbilisi Photo Award, the BarTur Award for Photography and the ‘Fantasy’ – Open call winner of the ‘Photo Is:real International Photography Festival’.
https://www.instagram.com/camerav_m/
http://www.actorsphotography-berlin.com/
Alexandra Lier is a passionate petrolhead whose love for speed started at a young age with hotwheels. She channels her passion for speed and the automotive world into her art, working across a range of media including photography, film, 3D, AR, VR, AI and NFT. After her studies she quickly established herself as an award-winning creative personality in the advertising industry before transitioning to pursue her artistic passions. As a Creative Director and story writer, she has developed stop motion films that have garnered millions of views.
Assi Meshullam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Fine Art at the University of Haifa, which he chaired between 2017 and 2022. Born in 1975 in Haifa, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in art and archaeology in 2000, and has been active in the art field ever since. He presented and participated in many exhibitions in Israel and abroad, and won several awards, including the Minister of Culture Award for 2014. The preoccupation with ritual, religion and archaeology is also evident in Meshullam’s artistic work, which spans many fields, from drawing, painting and sculpture, to installation, video and digital art.
Daphna Keenan is a musician based in Berlin.
Keenan is a composer and arranger of contemporary music, practicing film scoring, performances and studio recordings,
plays a variety of musical instruments, mainly guitars, bass, keybords and drums. She owns a projects studio located in Berlin. Keenan is the lead singer and writer of the Israeli band “Daphna & the Cookies” since 2005.
Ilanit Shamia, a Tel Aviv-based artist, has spent nearly two decades weaving her creative journey between photography, illustration, fashion, and journalism. She graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design with a degree in Photography. Some of her artwork is part of Israeli art collections. Currently, she is writing a column about the cultural impact of AI in the weekend edition of Haaretz newspaper and is actively involved in teaching and lecturing about AI-generated images.
Nicolai Klemke is a physicist-turned-indiehacker who fell in love with AI-based text-to-video generation in the end of 2022. Since then, he has been developing neural frames.
https://www.neuralframes.com
https://x.com/nicolaiklemke
https://www.youtube.com/@neuralframes
https://www.instagram.com/neural_frames
Lukas Kuhne Born amidst the kaleidoscopic chiaroscuro of Berlin, Lukas Kuhne’s artistic journey delves into existential skepticism and scientific inquiry, creating visual sonnets that transcend singular expertise. As a contemplative generalist, Kuhne caresses diverse artistic disciplines, immersing in their essence without succumbing to specialized constraints. Within Kuhne’s multifaceted prism, mindfulness converges with scientific rigor, extolling the omnipotent force of love as the sublime panacea, transcending the mundane and unveiling the cosmos within collective consciousness.
Uri Moss is a multidisciplinary Israeli artist, Sculptor, recycling artist, designer, filmmaker and musician. Born in Jerusalem in 1969 and grew up in a Kibbutz in Israel’s south, he’d been traveling the world and living in Europe most of his adult life. Since 1991 artist and performer member of the ‘Mutoid Waste Co.’ with whom he was active and witness to Sub-cultural events in the early 90s and 2000s. Since 1988 working in different aspects and levels of the film, theater and art scenes and industries, from production assistant to décor & props through camera, to art director, actor and producer. Living in Berlin since 2010, in partnership with Maja, he is sculpting mainly in steel and recycled materials, working in their shared atelier and experimenting with mind warping installations. Uri’s subjects combine philosophical ideas about the human condition ‘Reality Soup’ together with materials from our daily life.