Julius Hofmann and Lucien Murat created this joint exhibition in order to challenge the viewer and make them question the impact of rapid technology advancement and Artificial Intelligence on contemporary society. They both portray a post-apocalyptic world, where darkness, confusion and uncertainty prevail.

Hofmann (b.1983, Germany) draws his main inspiration from computer graphics, movies and music. His enthusiasm for disturbing, shocking, and surreal material, can be seen on his works. He misplaces light sources, created shadows that do not exist and portrays disproportionate figures with detached body parts. Hofmann aims to awaken the viewers by exposing them to his dystopian society, a society controlled by Artificial Intelligence. He depicts people striving to survive and maintain their humanness, as a direct reference to the refugee crisis. Uniforms, weapons and violence are common subjects in his paintings, functioning as a warning of the constant surveillance threatening our society.

On the other hand, Lucien Murat’s (b.1986, France) portraits explore the decay and transformation of the post-internet era, disrupted by the emergence of artificial intelligence and global warming. A constant flow of images, videos and texts is consumed and processed by digital platforms, fundamentally altering our perceptions of identity. The advent of AI complicates this understanding; computer programs have greatly accelerated this process, shaping new archetypes to a degree where human consciousness is overshadowed. Murat has developed an AI program where he imports images of his previous works and generates new textured variations. This process results in undefined figures, reminiscent of heroic archetypes found in mythology, video games and manga. His figures emerge from a lava flow, serving as the primary titans of a post-AI world or the last remaining ‘heroes’ slowly turning into dust. Murat sewed patches adorned with sand and fragments of discarded materials on the canvas, and painted them with oil sticks and oil pastels, giving this way a more tangible perspective to his characters.