Do our artificial intelligences like to kiss each other?

After a month's residency at Avant Galerie, the young digital art studio u2p050 is delighted to announce its exhibition Smack Dat, running from June 22 to July 4 at Avant Galerie Vossen.

Smack dat is a humorous exploration of this troubled moment we live in, where images generated by artificial intelligence are still distinct from 'real images'.

Visitors will discover a series of intriguing and humorous images of political figures kissing themselves. These images, produced with artificial intelligence, represent an artistic proposal on ego and narcissism in the contemporary political world. Each image is the result of a complex process that combines machine learning algorithms with image manipulation techniques, creating striking compositions.
In addition to the exhibition of images, u2p050 will feature a pop-up store where visitors can purchase unique t-shirts made from the same images of political figures kissing themselves, from Zemmour to Mélenchon.

A soundtrack specially designed by IA for the pop-up will brighten up customers' ears, between club music from Abercrombie&Fitch stores and playlist from Carrefour supermarkets.

To promote the exhibition, u2p050 is also organizing a wild poster campaign in the streets of Paris to bring these images to life off-screen, and give them another form of virality.



About u2p050
u2p050 is a pluridisciplinary creative studio at the crossroads of art, philosophy and technology.

Through its digital creations, u2p050 attempts to construct thought experiments that open up ways of questioning our contemporary world, and in particular its increasing digitalisation.

To do this, u2p050 uses experimental technologies in its works. For example, the artists use artificial intelligence, three-dimensional modeling, stereoscopic sound and interactive video production software. In extremely diverse forms - installations, texts or audiovisual productions - u2p050 explores a perspective in which the machine is no longer considered a tool to be enslaved, but a lens through which to view new worlds.

The studio u2p050 has exhibited in several major institutions including UCCA Labs and Boxes Art Museum in China, Avant Galerie and FRAC in France. u2p050 is the recipient of the French Ministry of Culture’s commission Mondes Nouveaux in 2022 and presented at Octobre Numérique festival. It is currently hosted in the international artistic incubator Poush Manifesto in Paris and a member of the Glitch artistic project initiated by the blockchain researcher Primavera de Filippi.