When AI Depicts “Invisible Life” | Sofia Crespo / Entangled Others | Visiting the “Synthetic Natures” Exhibition

One day, I visited the exhibition currently being held at the Chanel Nexus Hall in the Chanel building in Ginza 3-chome,

“Synthetic Natures: Entangled Worlds—The Current State of AI and Life” (Sofia Crespo / Entangled Others)

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I stopped by after visiting another exhibition on the same day, but the moment I stepped into the venue, I felt a sudden change in the density of the air, and I found myself stopping in my tracks.

The works exhibited here are different from the general “extension of contemporary art,” and it was an experience like standing before
the moment where technology and art intersect at a critical point.

Standing in front of the works, there is a strong impact that opens up one's perspective toward the future, more than just “seeing something new.”

A place where AI and human creativity intersect

The centerpiece of this exhibition is the artist Sofia Crespo, who is from Argentina and currently based in Portugal.

She is also known for the unit “Entangled Others”, which she formed with a researcher from Norway, and has gained an international presence in just a few years since its formation in 2020.

Their production proceeds by lightly crossing fields that would normally be considered separate, such as AI, life sciences, bio-art, and digital engineering.

Unlike the generally imagined “AI art,” this is an attempt to
reconstruct the traces of invisible life and visualize the “possibilities” of organisms that do not exist.
The videos and three-dimensional objects on display, while intentionally avoiding a handcrafted feel, were overwhelming in their precision and scale.

Here, something different from a craft-like texture,
“beauty born of technology” is certainly emerging.

An attempt to “regenerate” invisible life with AI

One of the themes that Crespo and her colleagues are exploring is
“the structures of life that humanity does not yet know.”.

Organisms lurking in the deep sea.
Forms that may have been lost in the process of evolution.
Or, “overlooked life” that should have existed in the gaps of history.

The process of reconstructing “images of life that did not exist but could have” by combining AI generation and the analysis of genetic information is not merely science fiction imagination.

It is as if it were,

• the work of filling in the blanks of biological evolution

• the excavation of minute life buried in history

• a re-translation of the dynamism that the primitive Earth possessed

It also looked like an act of...

“We understand the world based on an overwhelming amount of ‘what we do not know.’”

As I gazed at the work, that fact quietly remained in my heart.

Art reconnects academic fields that had been divided

Life sciences, marine biology, AI research, engineering, botany, data analysis—.
Fields that would normally be discussed separately are seamlessly stitched together within the exhibition space.

I was reminded of how Edo-period painters used to create expressions that included observation, documentation, and scientific interest.

Art is a device that connects various fields of knowledge.

I feel that its role has not changed in 200 years.

However, the way it “connects” has expanded significantly toward technology in the modern era—
this exhibition clearly demonstrated that.

On the “distance” between individual production and large-scale works

While captivated by the overwhelming technology and scale,
a question suddenly crossed my mind.

“How is this production environment sustained?”

When creating works individually, everything from materials and equipment to time and production costs is directly linked to one's own daily life.
On the other hand, the works in this exhibition are realized through corporate sponsorship, collaboration with specialized engineers, and large-scale production environments.

The conditions for art production itself are diverging significantly on a global scale.
I felt that “distance” vividly.

Crossing borders, crossing languages, where is art heading?

The exhibition commentary was provided in English, and I felt that the artists themselves choose their bases of activity without being bound by nationality or native language, delivering their work to the world.

Perhaps my own environment, where I live only in Japanese and introduce my work only in Japanese, is actually the unusual one.
That thought suddenly crossed my mind.

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