Eden.exe opened at CANK on July 3 as part of Berlin’s 48 Stunden Neukölln festival. The exhibition brings together ten international artists to explore how artificial intelligence is changing the way art is selected and interpreted.
One of the evening's highlights was a live painting by Los Angeles-based artist Robert Vargas. Known for his large-scale murals and portraits, Vargas traveled to Berlin for the opening and created a new work in front of the audience. His performance brought a direct, physical act of painting into an exhibition exploring new technologies.
Eden.exe is built around the idea that AI can be more than a tool for artists. AI curator Noah33 takes part in selecting and interpreting the works alongside human curator and critic Julia Sysalova. The project asks what changes when a machine becomes involved in decisions traditionally made by people.
“Paradise has always been a product of human imagination. But can code imagine it for us today? Eden.exe is a territory where authorship no longer belongs entirely to anyone,” says Sysalova.
The exhibition brings together Anna Kapyrina, Dina Zakmane, Irina Metz, Julia Flit, Natalya Raduenz, Natalya Ponomareva, Nelya Akimova, Oxana Akopov, Veera Romanoff, and Viktor Vinichenko. Their works include painting, installation, and conceptual projects that consider technology alongside questions of identity, perception, and consciousness.
Eden.exe doesn’t present AI as the future of art. Rather, it explores the questions that arise when technology begins to influence what we see and how we understand it. The exhibition also leaves room for disagreement: can a machine recognize the value of an artwork, and what happens when its choices challenge human judgement?