Figures of History and the Grounds of Intelligence

Figures of History and the Grounds of Intelligence
What happens when an image leaves a state archive and enters the feedback loops of an artificial neural network?

Beginning with this speculation, Figures of History and the Grounds of Intelligence travels back in time to probe the intersecting histories of state planning, global networks and cybernetics that started with the Cold War and eventually precipitated the ongoing boom in generative artificial intelligence.

Looking into how different historical figurations have come to make up the grounds of “intelligence” that underpin today’s generative AI models, the performance reflects on what it means for these models to draw upon “memory” not for the narration of history but for the endless generation and regeneration of target distributions of noise. At stake here is the future of representation itself—a future where images would appear to have no history to speak of.

Figures of History and the Grounds of Intelligence is co-commissioned by Centre Pompidou, Paris, and Kadist, San Francisco and Paris.


About Artist
Ho Rui An is an artist and writer working in the intersections of contemporary art, cinema, performance and theory. Through lectures, essays and films, his research examines the relations between labour, technology and capital across different systems of governance in a global age. He has presented projects at the Shanghai Biennale; Bangkok Art Biennale; Gwangju Biennale; Jakarta Biennale; Kochi-Muziris Biennale; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Kunsthalle Wien; Singapore Art Museum; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; and Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, Japan.