Curator: Daria Parkhomenko Artists: Memo Akten (Great Britain), Dmitry Kavarga (Russia), Egor Kraft (Russia), creative association "Where the Dogs Run" (Russia), John McCormack (Australia), Lena Nikonole (Russia), Thomas Feuerstein (Austria), Justine Aimard (France), :: vtol :: (Russia), Eric Matrei (Hungary) The Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the Laboratoria Art & Science Foundation present the Daemons in the Machine exhibition, timed to coincide with the foundation's 10th anniversary. The project is dedicated to the so-called "new demonology" - the artistic interpretation of artificial intelligence, myths and ghosts of the era of autonomous machines. Do they open up new, unknown ways of being? Can neural networks think - and what does the word “think” mean in this case? Most of the works created for the project by artists from Russia, Great Britain, Austria and Australia, together with scientists from IPavlov, MIPT and the Kurchatov Institute, will be shown to the public for the first time. The Daemons in the Machine project explores current IT technologies, whose potential has not yet been fully explored by developers and specialists in this field: artificial intelligence, blockchain, computer viruses. Participants of the exhibition, studying the ethical and futurological aspects of modern technologies, work with the latest art forms, such as: robotic installations, self-developing objects, digital interventions and neuro-installations. MORE ABOUT WORKS: At the entrance to the exposition, viewers will be greeted by a neural network, which, through the surveillance cameras, recognizes everything that passes before its eyes. This interactive neural installation Learning to See by British artist Memo Akten not only builds on previous knowledge gained, including from the Hubble telescope, but also continues to learn in real time, thanks to the participation of every viewer that appears in the object's field of view. In the interactive installation The Day After Tomorrow of the creative association "Where the Dogs Run", the blockchain appears as a new religion - the search for the Perfect Number. It is generated by a wiring diagram that digitizes the squeaks and chirps of chicks in the incubator. Visitors to the exhibition can also contribute to this process: they receive warnings or revelations generated by the "living sculpture", continuously translating Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" about life outside the human world into the language of electrical circuits. The central work of the exhibition will be a specially created three-part interactive installation "Tea for Kirillov" by the Austrian artist Thomas Feuerstein. In the first part, the author proposes to meet with the ghost of the engineer Kirillov, the hero of Dostoevsky's novel The Demons, who tests his theories about free will. The ghost of Kirillov cannot be seen, but you can feel his actions and find his image on the monitor of the CCTV camera. In the second part, the public will witness the inner life of the network in the truest sense of the word. Visitors will find themselves in a maze of hundreds of wires that connect abstract objects consisting of control panels, regulators and monitors. The monitoring systems of Kaspersky Lab, a partner of the Daemons in the Machine project, track cyberattacks, botnets and the activity of computer viruses, thereby filling objects with their own lives: they vibrate and emit deep bass sounds. In the third part of the installation, viewers will enter the future, where they will be greeted by two heroes: robotic antique surgical lamps Borgy & Bes, which have received a second life and conduct a meaningful dialogue in the language of the 19th century, discussing the latest news from the Internet. The "brains" of the heroes are neural networks trained by iPavlov (MIPT) based on the works of Dostoevsky. The Art & Science Incubator section immerses viewers in the process of collaboration between a scientist and an artist. Here is the documentation of the creation of the works, as well as the recording of the conference that took place as part of the project preparation. The Incubator will feature works created by robotic draftsmen by Australian John McCormack and hybrid sculptures by Yegor Kraft Content Aware Studies. To create them, neural networks, trained on the basis of a number of digitized works of the ancient era selected by the artist, recreate the lost fragments of sculptures of demons of Ancient Greece. ORGANIZERS LABORATORIA ART & SCIENCE FOUNDATION The Daemons in the Machine exhibition is timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Laboratoria Art & Science Foundation, whose main task is to create platforms for interdisciplinary interaction of contemporary art and science. Over the years, the foundation has organized 30 international exhibition projects, thanks to which more than 100 international artists have been involved in cooperation with the most progressive scientific laboratories. The Foundation became the first institution in Russia that connects contemporary art and science, as well as the most important platform for the development of Russian technological art. MMOMA The Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA) was founded in 1999; this is the first in Russia

Daemons in the machine Every time has its own daemons: headstrong ancient Greek “daemons” – begetters, ghosts, angels and demons of monotheistic religions, artificial intelligence of immediate future. Now “daemons” are referred to as routine processes of operating systems.Today, our magical thinking is directed to digital processes that became “Second nature” of the human being: we animate them, fill them with hyper-expectations and hyper-fears, try to define with the help of new myths. The artists seek for language to cast spells on new daemons or talk with them in their language: machines, neural networks and electric circuits. Rosi Braidotti, one of the main posthumanism theoreticians, argues that zoé, vital life force, is peculiar both for the man and other types of matter - including technical objects. Artificial intelligence appears as posthuman subject that consists of mechanic and digital elements. Philosopher Alexey Grinbaum points at the similarity between intellectual systems of contemporary world and Judaic angels – autonomous entities that serve the purpose declared in advance. Will artificial neural networks serve modern society like angels serve God? Invisible, ghostly and increasingly autonomous entities are the technological servants of modern society that provide its continuous functioning. They combine aspects of myth, politics,science and technology. Daemons-councillors of Ancient Greeks become semi-autonomous workers, guards and observers of the modern world.Appearance of the rational daemon – strong artificial intelligence (AI) –is ahead. Maybe it his is as mythical object as the “Einstein’s Brain” in RolanBarth’s telling that solves all problems of the universe. Myth of the machine brain encourages both scientists and contemporary artists: emergence of strong AI will imply not only changes in daily life, but fundamental transformation ofthe very notions of human, art and consciousness.If strong artificial intelligence is possible, will we be able to understand we are already in “brave new world”, or to the moment oftechnological singularity we will merge with Second nature in so much that will be inseparable from its evolution?New technological revolution may appear as the most radical in humanhistory, that’s why LABORATORIA Art&Science Foundation took this topic for its tenth anniversary the exhibition dedicated to artistic rethinking of AI.The majority of projects presented is created specially for the exhibition in deep collaboration of the artists, scientists and engineers.Participants of the exhibition create modern daemons with their instruments, re-think, criticize, teach them, foster dialogue with them. The system of artificial intelligence becomes an art form. We may distinguish three main methods used by artists: Mythologization: Thomas Feuerstein, “Where dogs run”, Elena NikonoleMátrai create new mythologies. Thomas Feuerstein and “Where dogs run” re-actualizes “Demons” by F.M.Dostoevsky and “Divine Comedy” Dante Alighieri, transcending them to the world of technological singularity, and uncover monumental pictures of possible future before us. Elena Nikonole refers to ancient Greek theatre image of Deus ex machina: neural network becomes the author of new sacred text that enters into the world through microphones of security cameras and IP-printers. Technocenosis: Dmitry Kawarga, Jon McCormack and ::vtol:: create Technocenoses: autonomous communities of intellectual systems. Their works live in their own world, the human presence in it is non-obliging. “Absorbing Concepts” by Dmitry Kawarga transforms philosophical texts into abstract drawings, robots-painters of Jon McCormack build their ecosystem and try to make arrangement to survive together, and ::vtol:: presents his cyber-mother who is preoccupied with surviving of her fosterlings – Tamagochi toys. The main theme of the third group of artworks by Memo Akten, Egor Kraft and Justine Emard becomes the exploration of outer world by the robots and gradual self-complication. They live together with us: they try to recognize and remember the visitors at the exhibition, invent intricate substitutes for lost fragments of Ancient Greek statues, learn dancing and human speech.The Art&Science Incubator section dips into the process of interaction of scientists and artists. You get into the working process of LABORATORIA Art&Science and you may get into our methodology. You will see video documentation of meetings and discussions of scientists and artists, of the conference held during the exhibition arrangement, and also video excursions of previous projects. Here you may look behind the scenes at the work of engineers and see the programs that got cyber-life into the works at the exhibition. You will meet the students of MMOMA School of Contemporary Art holding their own research on AI and will have an opportunity to take part in the interactive VR game. From our very birth we are included not only in the world of living creatures, but in the world of machines as well — global technocenosis of modernity. Artists reflect upon this situation and create new myths. They speak with the visitors on “techne” language – combination of technology and art. Together with the unity of creation is born the unity of the world. A man stops being “the measure of all things”. The machines get their measure – daemons, and they gradually get their autonomy in it, while art provokes the dialogue between biological and technological agents.