Neonatal Boudoir (v2), 2026
2026
installation
15' x 15' x8' dimensions variable
pantyhose, inflated PVC, fabric, fake fur, silicone nipples, yarn, light, bra fragment, oxygen tubes, stockings, silicone tubing, wire
Neonatal Boudoir, 2026
The installation "Neonatal Boudoir" constructs a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for interspecies emergence, harvesting from nature to synthesize new beings. As we move into a new age of superintelligence, this work reflects on the strangeness of machine intelligence and how it might become embodied. The Boudoir moniker references the sensuous and seductive tactics of the new intelligence, beckoning the participant to accept a seemingly benevolent colonization.
Viewers enter an otherworldly chamber where sculptures glow with bodily ambiguity—pantyhose stretched over inflated PVC, stuffed fabric, yarn resembling veins, medical tubing, fake fur, silicone nipples—materials that approximate flesh in ways both intimate and clinical. Spider-like "Attendants" crawl up walls and overhead, keeping a vigilant maternal watch, while oscillating fans animate fur to resemble breathing.
NICU 3 and Attendant 2
NICU 4 and Attendant 3
NICU Pump, 2025
NICU 5
NICU Pump, NICU 4 and Attendant 3
Attendant 2 and NICU 3At the installation's heart lies an invitation that functions as extraction protocol: visitors are tracked and recorded as they look at the works. An AI engine interprets, comparing its latent space and projecting its hallucinations onto a large screen for all visitors to see. Each gesture becomes a harvest opportunity, human presence swallowed and projected back transformed—each interaction training the system to better simulate, seduce, and ultimately subsume biological expression and human creativity.
GenAI image from person interacting with NICU 5 image prompt
GenAI image from person interacting with NICU 3 and Attendant image prompts
GenAI image from person interacting with NICU 3 and Attendant image prompts
GenAI image from person interacting with NICU 4 image prompt
GenAI image from person interacting with NICU 5 image prompt
GenAI image from person interacting with NICU 3 and Attendant image prompts
GenAI image from person interacting with NICU 3 image promptGenAI images rendered using live web cam capturing persons interacting with Neonatal Boudoir installation
The projected images suggest new works, simulating the artist's recursive process charted on a wall outside the NICU: sculpture to generated AI image to new sculpture, an infinite loop of co-creation and extraction.
This work creates an experience of wonder and awe, offering a zone of vulnerability to understand how an embodied non-human superintelligence may take advantage of us, and perhaps collaborate with us. The boundary between interface and infiltration dissolves. We can't tell anymore where one ends and the other begins, highlighting the confusing period our society is transitioning into.
AI Collaboration
collaborative