Sara Bastai
RAM_4.0

Exhibition Details

What are the limits of Artificial Intelligence in interpreting the memory of a human being? By stimulating a programme that reads images, RAM_4.0 speculates on the thinking of an algorithm and reflects on issues related to privacy and representation.

The starting archive is Bastai's smartphone gallery. Hundreds of images are processed by an algorithm that analyzes them and describes what it observes. For each image, it generates a more or less accurate caption in which a bra can be mistaken for a hat, scissors for a toothbrush. And it is precisely according to what the Artificial Intelligence seems to see in her photos that the author takes a new series of photographs. She plays with angles, framing, the body and facial expressions with the aim of establishing a dialogue.

RAM_4.0 not only shows us what an algorithm can think and see, it’s also an augmented representation of society, where glamour and humorous details are tools that reflect on mass production. In a society driven by images and social media, documenting our lives and sharing memories is an important part of our existence: to what extent can we let AI construct our identity and narrate it?