AI: More than Human

Detlef Weitz, Stefan Hurtig: AE/MAETH, 3-channel video installation, 8:45 min., 2016. Installation view at Jewish Museum Berlin, 2016. Photography: Stefan Hurtig

AE/MAETH, a 3-channel video installation in collaboration with Detlef Weitz, reveals the myth of artificial life in cinema history. The video collage is based on snippets from 60 movies that depict humunculi, cyborgs, robots, androids, replicants and of course: golems. The research-like artistic approach that led to the video work reveals recurring motifs in form and content of Sci-Fi movies that tell the story of various artifical lifeforms. The looped video shows three chapters: 1. the creation from dead matter, 2. the creature as companion and 3. the loss of control and destruction of the artifical being. The work’s title AE/MAETH (aemaeth=life, maeth=death) refers to the magic spell rabbi Loew chanted in order to bring the golem to life and again destoy it.

The video work was originally commissioned by the Jewish Museum Berlin for their Golem exhibition and is now on display at the Barbican Centre in London. The AI: More than Human exhibtion explores the general world of artificial intelligence.

AI: More than Human
16 May–26 Aug 2019

The Curve, Barbican Centre
London, UK