Robert Draws – London’s Inanimate Show offers a striking experience into the emotional and intellectual intersections of artificial intelligence and human connection. Held at the Hundred Years Gallery on July 26 and 27, the group exhibition curated by Olivia Andrews delivers a journey through multimedia works. Artists such as Poppy Cauchi and Siyang Wang challenge viewers to reimagine how intimacy and connection might look in a world influenced by AI. Through evocative installations, motion-triggered responses, and digitized representations, the boundary between creator and code is blurred. Rather than presenting AI as cold or mechanical, these works ask what it means when algorithms begin to reflect our innermost desires and fears. The exhibit draws both admiration and discomfort, raising pressing questions about the authenticity of emotion in technological landscapes.
In the second room of London’s Inanimate Show viewers are surrounded by works that speak directly to emotional entanglements with non-human entities. Siyang Wang’s pieces pulse with soft ambient lighting that responds to bodily movement encouraging a subconscious intimacy. Nearby Poppy Cauchi’s installation features whispering AI voices that seem to long for human acknowledgment. These scenes are staged with intentional ambiguity leaving viewers to reflect on their emotional reactions. While nothing is overtly romantic or sexual the presence of longing is unmistakable. The suggestion that technology could desire or be desired leads audiences down unfamiliar emotional pathways. These imaginative projections become all the more impactful when presented in artistic formats. Instead of asking if machines can love the works suggest we ask why humans so easily project emotion onto them.
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Several standout installations at London’s Inanimate Show function as emotional mirrors inviting viewers to examine their memories through AI interpretation. A video loop curated in near silence draws the audience into private AI-generated dialogues that seem oddly familiar. One piece showcases digital avatars trained on fragmented data of personal stories creating monologues that are eerily relatable. This method of storytelling opens up a conversation about the ways humans outsource memory and emotional labor to technology. These AI systems have not been built simply to perform but to emulate and evoke. By immersing the audience in projections that feel both artificial and sincere the artists challenge traditional roles of observer and subject. Viewers are transformed into participants who supply their own emotional context to complete the narrative loop.
Hundred Years Gallery has been transformed for London’s Inanimate Show into more than just a venue. It has become an experimental lab where viewers interact with objects that sense breathe and react. The space itself has been shaped to provoke questions with fluctuating lighting and soundscapes that respond to audience movement. In one section thin wires stretch across walls pulsing faintly as if breathing when approached. This physical response from the installations fosters a strange familiarity blurring the line between inanimate and alive. Technology here is not separate from humanity but embedded within it echoing our movements and reflecting our gaze. These environmental details have been designed to complement the emotional weight of the artworks providing not only context but an extension of their message.
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Many of the works at London’s Inanimate Show subtly push against ideas of authenticity and personal identity. With AI becoming a medium for emotional expression questions arise around authorship and originality. Who owns the emotion when a machine can simulate a longing glance or a wistful voice The artists do not offer answers but rather environments that let such questions unfold naturally. Viewers find themselves wondering if they are moved by the art or the algorithm behind it. In a culture that increasingly merges digital presence with personal identity these installations serve as a reflection of shifting selfhood. What makes an experience authentic is no longer defined by human exclusivity. Through AI and artistic vision the exhibition presents a future where intimacy does not require biology to feel real.
