A new archivist arrived in the city! Visuality of coronavirus pandemic as seen from non-human perspective of AI curator.

The Black Box project was started during the coronavirus pandemic. It combines three approaches to problems that have arisen during it. FIrstly, contemporary art and artists have found themselves in a situation of existential threat since many countries have announced lockdown and everyday life has been reduced to the very basic imperatives of staying healthy and surviving. With the Black Box project, young artists were encouraged to conduct artistic research of their individual situation during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Next, the time of closed galleries have made it necessary to rethink online exhibitions and communication. Instead of just simulating a gallery space or exhibition catalogue online, this project seeks to bring new organizational principles into the way the artworks are presented, using the potential of interactivity.
And lastly, Black Box is here to rid the quarantine from the kitschy pathos of collective sentiments. The results of the artistic researches, artworks and non-artistic visual material alike, were passed on to an AI-curator that provides us, the visitors, with its very own an-aesthetic interpretation of the collective experience.

Credits
Jana Horáková (CZ), Marika Kupková (CZ) – curators; Alina Matějová (CZ), Oliver Staša (CZ) – graphic and web design; Štěpán Miklánek (CZ), Pavel Sikora (CZ) – artificial neural networks programmers

Participating artists: Polina Davydenko, Markéta Filipová, Ondřej Homola, Juliana Höschlová, Vojtěch Kundrát, Johana Merta, Ladislav Mirvald, Tomáš Moravanský.

The Black Box curatorial project is being implemented with financial participation of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic within the programme ETA. This is one of the outputs of the project (no. TL02000270) Media Art Live Archive: Intelligent Interface for Interactive Mediation of Cultural Heritage.
https://www.muni.cz/en/research/projects/43946