The finalist artwork
HERbarium - Dancing with an AI, 2023.
Website, 3D models / AR filters, HD videos
By Kamila Kard
Selected by: Domenico Quaranta
The finalist artwork
HERbarium - Dancing with an AI, 2023.
Website, 3D models / AR filters, HD videos
By Kamila Kard
Selected by: Domenico Quaranta
HERbarium - Dancing with an AI (2023)" is a performative and multimedia project that combines projection and live performance, featuring an original choreography performed by dancers and transformed in collaboration with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) into a model that informs both the movements of the performers and the animations. In other words, both the performers and the 3D-modeled poisonous plants, adapted to a human skeleton enabling humanoid movements, translate the same choreography into dance, derived from a human matrix through AI. However, each of these translation steps introduces errors and interpretational efforts into the dance, producing a margin of uncanniness and disturbing difference in the two simultaneous performances (of the plants and the performers).
Poisonous plants have often been associated with witchcraft, where they were used to create poisons and love potions. Witchcraft has, in turn, always been primarily associated with women, both in a positive and negative light. Techno-witchcraft, sexualization, and femininity frequently reappear in contemporary personifications of AI, from cinematic imaginings that transform them into actual digital witches, to comforting mythical voice assistants. Building on this AI-woman association, HERbarium narrates the complex relationship between humans and artificial intelligence, highlighting the seductive, manipulative, and technophobic power exercised by AIs through a choreography where human bodies, poisonous plants, and "digital witches" dance together.
HERbarium - Dancing with an AI is a comprehensive framework of work that includes, in addition to the performative element, a series of videos, AR filters, paintings, and a website. Within this complex array of artifacts, the website functions as an archive/repository, presenting a complete herbarium of the plants (interactive 3D compositions of one or more plants in dance positions, also usable as augmented reality filters) and a collection of the videos for the 3 potions (Love Potion, Dream Potion, and Death Potion), constituting the three acts of the live performance
Learn more about
Kamilia Kard
Kamilia Kard
Kamilia Kard is an Italian-Hungarian artist and scholar born in Milan. She earned a four-year degree in Economics from Bocconi University, Milan, (2003), a three-year degree in Painting from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts (2012), and a master's degree in Net Art from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan (2014).
Her artistic practice began in the realm of painting and later shifted towards the digital domain. These two aspects are easily identifiable in her works, both due to historical and artistic references and the vibrant aesthetic characterized by typical screen-shifting colors and glittering effects that exude a sensual appeal. Themes often delve into the biographical and intimate realm. At times, they analyze feminine themes and are defined chromatically by a pop taste leaning towards kitsch. It's important to emphasize that the digital aspect, in this case, encompasses gifs, memes, the internet, emojis, and prints. These are all elements belonging to the contemporary world, which have undergone a process of normalization and have been skillfully translated into the artistic sphere. In Kamilia Kard's case, the tool never supersedes the content.
Her work focuses on constructing identity in the Internet age and manifests through various media, from painting to video and animated gifs, prints, and installations. Her online projects reflect on the ways an image, narrative, and identity are constructed and interact in both virtual and real contexts. The semiotics and phenomenology created around these identity works express a contemporaneity where narration is mediated daily and habitually by various interfaces.
Her research explores how hyperconnectivity and new forms of online communication have altered and influenced the perception of the human body, as well as our gestures, feelings, and emotions. Her practice spans from digital paintings to websites, video installations to 3D printed sculptures, animated gifs to interactive virtual environments.
Her work has been exhibited internationally in museums, galleries, public spaces, and online venues. Highlights include: Careof, Milan (2021); Marsèlleria, Milan (2021); Museo Pino Pascali, Polignano a Mare (2021); Galerie Odile Ouizeman, Paris (2020); Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris (2020); Dimora Artica, Milan (2020); Olomouc Museum of Art (2020); Metronomo, Modena (2018, 2019, and 2020); EP7, Paris (2019); Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2018); iMAL, Brussels (2018); Digitalive @ REF, Rome (2018); Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (2017); Triennale di Milano (2017); Centro Cultural San Paolo (2017); La Quadriennale di Roma (2016); Ludwig Museum, Budapest (2015); Ipersalone, Miami (2015); La Biennale Sbagliata, online (2014); Museo del Novecento, Milan (2013). She curated the book "Alpha Plus. Anthology of Digital Art" (Editorial Vortex 2017) and as an author, she wrote "Arte e Social Media. Generatori di Sentimenti" (Postmediabooks, 2022).
She often gives lectures on her artistic practice and research. As a Ph.D. student in Digital Humanities at the University of Genoa, she participated in the Machine Feeling conference (Transmediale and Cambridge University) and was a Visiting Fellow at EnsadLab, Paris. She teaches Multimedia Communication and New Media Art Aesthetic in Milan, Italy.