2025-2026 EN

The title of the work derives from the Infinite Monkey Theorem: given an infinite amount of time, countless monkeys randomly striking the keys of typewriters could eventually produce the works of Shakespeare. This thought experiment about probability, repetition, and chance also echoes the way artificial intelligence generates language through training on vast amounts of textual data and continuous iteration.

One Million Monkeys is an automated vending machine for contemporary art proposals. Through a touchscreen interface, visitors select creative parameters such as artistic medium, subject matter, identity, geographical context, and ideology. Based on these selections, an AI system generates a proposal for a contemporary artwork and prints it as a physical receipt that the visitor can take away.

The work is an “Automatic Cinema Machine,” inspired by the historical allegory of the Potemkin village in Imperial Russia. General Grigory Potemkin staged temporary “villages” along the riverbanks where Empress Catherine II’s flotilla would pass. Soldiers and peasants, disguised as cheerful villagers, stood before these hastily constructed façades, waving and smiling to create the illusion of prosperity. Once the Empress departed, the sets were quickly dismantled and rebuilt at the next location.

In this installation, viewers—like the Empress—encounter an almost endlessly shifting landscape. As the train circles the track, sensors switch camera perspectives to follow it, while AI transforms the live feed into a perpetually morphing stream of animated imagery. Each passage of the train activates new horizons. Meanwhile, visitors can rearrange photo-covered cards on a sandbox—like building blocks—prompting the AI to generate “cinematic bonsais.”