The (nightmare) dream of a human being who is perfect

The »Representative« behaves in a rather buttoned-up manner: »Don’t mention it«, she says snappishly, smiles rather smugly and then remains stubbornly silent. There are now five of these AI-programmed manikins, all perfectly modeled on the likeness of their creator Louisa Clement and produced in collaboration with a Chinese company specializing in the manufacture of sex dolls as well as with the Chair of Computational Linguistics at Saarbrücken University. For precisely this reason, »Louisa«, the »representative« created by artist Louisa Clement, is also somewhat uncanny: fed with the contents of the artist’s smartphone and furthermore connected to the internet, she does not simply mechanically reproduce prefabricated answers to visitors’ questions, but is also constantly learning and developing ever more complex traits. In the context of her exhibition and the book on the occasion of the Bonner Kunstpreis, Louisa Clement has now turned her attention to just how extensive the possibilities of manipulating human DNA have already become. On the basis of a scholarship in Paris facilitated by the art prize, she has developed the almost ten-minute film »off-target-effect« which, in a mixture of impressive texts, laboratory shots and computer sequences, tells of the (nightmare) dream of a human being who is perfect in every respect.

Exhibition:
Kunstmuseum Bonn, 22/2 – 16/6/2024