SPACE ORACEL – Annette Tesarek

AI – Threats and Promises

Artistic Positions on Post-Digital Futures

Opening: June 30, 2026, 18:00 – 22:00
Duration: June 30 – August 26, 2026
Venue: AG18 GALLERY, Annagasse 18, 1010 Vienna
Programme: A programme of lectures, discussions and artist talks will accompany the exhibition.

© Photo courtesy of Ana Vollwesen and Andreas Schlichtner

Following its presentation at the Austrian Cultural Forum in Warsaw, the exhibition has been revised and expanded for its Vienna edition.

While AI has become one of the most significant developments of our time, exhibitions that critically engage with its implications remain surprisingly rare. Yet precisely for this reason, artistic engagement is essential.

How do we negotiate agency and responsibility in a culture shaped by AI and algorithms?

This exhibition approaches AI not merely as a creative tool but as an infrastructure that shapes perception, knowledge production, social relations and imaginaries of the future. The participating artists explore questions of bias, surveillance, ethics, authorship, delegation and participation, examining both the potentials and the risks of AI and data-driven systems.

Artists

Academic Partners

The Future Foundation
LBI-NetMed – Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Network Medicine, University of Vienna https://netmed.lbg.ac.at/news/lbi-netmed-joins-exhibition-ai-threats-and-promises-in-vienna-this-summer/

As an academic partner, LBI-NetMed contributes to this discourse with both artistic and scientific components:

Lectures: Jörg Menche will contribute a talk to the exhibition’s accompanying programme of lectures, discussions, and artist talks. Schedule details will follow soon.

Media Installation: A new version of “pile of trash”, a collaborative work featuring an AI interface, developed by Sebastian Pirch and Norbert Unfug.

Performance: “Space oracle”, a live performance exploring the interface between AI and humans, presented by Annette Tesarek during the opening.

Curated by: Andreas Schlichtner https://artcoas.com/
AG18 GALLERY https://ag18gallery.com/de/

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PARALLEL VIENNA 2024
11./12. und 21./22.09.2024

SPACE ORACLE
ongoing interactice performance by Annette Tesarek
in cooperation with Norbert Unfug/ Sebastian Pirchs AI Installation POLE OF TRASH
@art_collection_schlichtner, projectstatement
Pavillon 16, basement, room 001

@art_collection_schlichtner Projectstatement
Pavillon 16, basement, Room 001
Otto-Wagner-Areal
Baumgartner Höhe
(Bus 48a: Otto-Wagner-Areal)
1140 Vienna
please get your ticket online
or at the entrance

UTOPIA DYSTOPIA

The Voyager mission in 1977 attempted to gain knowledge about the planetary system and interstellar space and to establish contact with extraterrestrial life forms in order to inform them of the existence of humanity. A record with greetings in 55 languages and sounds of the earth was sent along with instructions for playing it.

For PARALLEL Vienna 2024, we are equipping our exhibition as a spaceship. As with the Voyager mission, images and news from our times and past times are transported into the future.

Let’s imagine that people of the future or alien life forms encounter the Voyager probes or our spacecraft. Would the cultural property found be recognized as such and how would it be understood? Would it be seen as evidence of intelligence and creativity, a gesture of friendship, colonial intent, or evidence of a gradual path to ruin? Would one recognize that in 1977 and 2024, respectively, the industrial age and the utopias of modernity still had a significant influence on the way of life of many people and the policies of various systems of power? Would one find posthumanist ideas and criticism of transhumanism here and an attempt to address impending dystopias?

This exhibition holds a mirror up to us and discusses concepts of what it means to be human. Different time perspectives are part of our concept. Thinking spaces for possible presents and futures are opened up.

David Blumenkind / Patryck Chan / Kike Chueca / Toninho Dingl / Anna Dumitriu / Thomas Gegner / Margareta Klose / Martin Krammer / Lukas Lex / Rica Fuentes Martinez / Daniel Mazanik / Vanessa Mazanik / Nesku / Anna Pelz / Sebastian Pfeifhofer / Sebastian Pirch / Lia Qurina / Robert Resac / Bettina Schülke / Fabian Seiz / eliah nepomuk maitreya sölkner / emilia josephine maya sölkner / Clemens Stecher / Annette Tesarek / Norbert Unfug / Peter Várnai / Ana Vollwesen / Michael Vonbank / Jakob Liu Wächter / Adam Wiener / Moritz Wildburger / Oksana Zmiyevska / Flirty Horse Collective: Ivan Strelkin, Kasija Vrbanac Strelkin, Tatyana Juraszek, Barbara Angermaier, Weronika Strugala

idea / text/ graphics/ curated by:
@art_collection_schlichtner

project statement Andreas Schlichtner
@parallelvienna

https://parallelvienna.com/

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