Such algorithms are now advancing into a domain once thought most resistant to dehumanisation: the realm of culture. And yet it is 2026, and perhaps certain sweeping humanistic theories may be ready for the scrapheap. When, in 2022, OpenAI released its language model ChatGPT (GPT-3.5) to the public, it placed a powerful creative instrument in the hands of any willing internet user. AI: Algorithms of Illusion sets out to assess what artificial intelligence has already become and what it might still be. Allow me clarify: this will not be a compilation of funny images and videos produced, with varying success, by successive online applications. Rather, the Zamek display has been conceived as a critical examination of AI as a cultural phenomenon and an ever more influential component of the public order.

Kate Crawford is unquestionably the biggest name in the exhibition. A technology scholar and the author of Atlas of AI, a widely debated study of AI's place in today's world, she co-created, together with Serbian scientist and artist Vladan Joler known for Calculating Empires, a monumental map tracing "technology and power" across the globe from 1500 to the present day. Within this sweeping diagram appear references to disciplines ranging from medicine to education to the internet. As the authors themselves observe, each engagement with the piece uncovers fresh ties between fields that are unique to every visitor.

The theme of power and oppression will also be explored by Przemysław Jasielski. This graduate of the Poznań Academy of Fine Arts (now Poznań University of Fine Arts) will display one of his many signature machines: The Judgement Controller: a device designed to oversee the justice system. This physical apparatus employs artificial intelligence to calculate the likelihood that a particular user will commit a crime, and then independently dispenses... justice. It does so before any offense has even been committed, relying on an algorithm to which we are denied access and whose operations remain inscrutable. One might suppose that this scenario, reminiscent of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four or a novel by Philip K. Dick, is no more than an artist's fantasy. Yet the swift advancement of so-called "pre-crime" software developed to anticipate criminal behaviour, indicates otherwise.

Also deserving attention is Agnieszka Kurant's series Non-Organic Life. The New York-based artist "grows" elements and rare-earth metals essential to emerging technologies, among them cobalt and nickel, in purpose-built aquaria, producing colourful, installation-like compositions. She is now coming to Poznań to exhibit photos from this series. As Dorota Żaglewska, the exhibition's producer at the Zamek Cultural Centre, notes, these "cultures" are transient and exceptionally hard to move, hence the decision to present documentation instead. Kurant's photographs will be shown alongside rocks loaned by the Adam Mickiewicz University's Earth Museum, which contains naturally occurring rare-earth elements.

There will also be examples of the use of AI as a creative tool. Joanna Żylińska asked AI how it might visualise Charles Baudelaire's poetry collection The Flowers of Evil. The resulting images in the form of both videos and still photographs, engage with the themes of uncanniness and dehumanisation. Though appearing unreal at first glance, their visual language bears an unsettling affinity with the works of Beksiński and even some figures from the Warhammer universe.

Photographer Weronika Gęsicka similarly harnesses the potential of artificial intelligence in her "post-photographic" practice. She often incorporates AI in collages, merging archival photographs and images from stock libraries and police records with generated visuals. Gęsicka does not hesitate to create "archive imitations" as the foundation for her collages, yet, as she herself notes, she has no interest in producing images merely for the sake of their generation. For her, algorithms are yet another creative tool, allowing ideas previously sketched on paper to take tangible form. At the Zamek, she will exhibit works from her award-winning series Encyclopaedia, which references the practice of editors inserting fictitious entries into reference works to guard against plagiarism.

Gęsicka's works will resonate with the site-specific intervention True Colour by Jarosław Klupś, Dean of the Faculty of Photography at Poznań University of Fine Arts, situated in the windows of the Mosaic Hall and evoking stained glass. This huge collection of over 3,000 slides, each mounted in a coloured frame, becomes more or less visible to viewers as the sunlight shifts its angle throughout the day. These are photographs that no one wants any longer. Their authors have abandoned them, and since the works have never been digitised, they remain untouched by artificial intelligence and will not feed database-driven creation. In discussing his work, Klupś cautions against assuming that analogue photography is inherently truthful and objective. His images have been retouched and staged long before the era of AI or digital editing. He thus considers the possibilities offered by generative imaging as a further, natural step in the evolution of the photographic medium.

The exhibition's curators, Sylwia Szykowna and Aleksandra Kosior, have also invited Cécile Babiole, Paweł Janicki, Jakub Koźniewski, Ania Malinowska, Trevor Paglen, Anna Ridler and the artistic collective RYBN.ORG to participate. Each of these artists will seek to scrutinise AI to demystify it and confront it with both the past and the future. They are certainly worth following.

Adam Jastrzębowski

translation: Krzysztof Kotkowski

Exhibition: "AI: Algorithms of Illusion", Zamek (Castle) Cultural Centre, open until 12 July
for more, see: AI: Algorithms of Illusion

© Wydawnictwo Miejskie Posnania 2026