MACHINE LOVE: Video Game, AI and Contemporary Art

With the explosive growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and the integration of virtual and real worlds, the latest cutting-edge technologies have quickly penetrated our daily lives. This tendency has become especially apparent since the COVID-19 pandemic, when many human activities shifted towards virtual space. Looking back, the progress of art and technology has run parallel to each other throughout the course of history, a phenomenon that is especially evident in the field of computer art and video art. While recent innovations in video game engines and AI offer unprecedented possibilities for artists, the advent of generative AI also has raised significant concerns. Such developments are now attracting considerable attention in various fields and industries, including the contemporary art world.

MACHINE LOVE not only introduces contemporary art that employs game engines, AI, and virtual reality (VR), but also works that utilize generative AI - a technology with the capacity to surpass human creativity. These works explore new aesthetics and image-making through the use of various data sets that exist in digital space. Some works examine how online avatars and characters can nurture new types of gender and racial identities that lie beyond the reach of social norms, while others demonstrate the visualization of hyperrealistic landscapes. With artists adopting these methods, at the core of their creative practices are universal views of life and death, ethics, the environmental crisis facing contemporary society, historical interpretation, and diversity.

By exhibiting artworks jointly created by “machines” and artists, and offering immersive spatial experiences through large-scale installations, this exhibition functions as a platform to contemplate the relationship between humankind and technology, which evokes emotions of love, empathy, elation, fear, and anxiety. Join us in a space where reality and virtual space overlap in order to envision better ways to live out an uncertain future.

MACHINE LOVE: Video Game, AI and Contemporary Art

Exhibition Period: Thursday, February 13 – Sunday, June 8, 2025

Organizer	Mori Art Museum
Grants from	Arts Council Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture (Granted: Mori Building Co., Ltd.) Danish Arts Foundation
Corporate Sponsors	Rakuten Group, Inc. OBAYASHI CORPORATION
Patrons	James Yi-Rong, Hsu Katrina Lake
Curated by	Kataoka Mami (Director, Mori Art Museum) Martin Germann (Adjunct Curator, Mori Art Museum) Yahagi Manabu (Associate Curator, Mori Art Museum)
Advisors	Hatanaka Minoru (Chief Curator, NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC]) Taniguchi Akihiko (Media Artist)