archive.dweller (2023)


archive.dweller is a portal to the “mindset” of AI, revealing the texts extracted by the machine from the images.

The machine hosts an image database of the Centraal Museum’s collection, containing 70.000+ objects. Visitors can select their favorite, while the machine selects a favorite as well. It interprets what it sees through text, giving visitors an insight into the patterns an AI recognizes. Often factually incorrect, sometimes poetic, occasionally style-breaking but above all, they are infinitely diverse.
With these texts, it prompts a new artwork. The process of combining two artworks results in giving a contemporary twist to seventeenth-century paintings, while Rietveld's chairs, for example, can suddenly take on a picturesque context.

archive.dweller has been created by Telemagic  for Centraal Museum, and it’s on show at their main exhibition Collectie Centraal until 2027.


photo credits: Centraal Museum Utrecht