Pierre Huyghe at the Serpentine

Pierre Huyghe is one of the world’s leading artists. He creates porous and contingent environments, complex systems in which living and non-living, real and symbolic agents evolve.

‘I don’t want to exhibit something to someone, but rather the reverse: to exhibit someone to something.’ Pierre Huyghe

Although Huyghe intentionally alters the sites in which he works, events and growth are often encouraged to occur without his control. The exhibition is therefore changed irrevocably and unpredictably over the course of the time in which it exists.

For his exhibition at the Serpentine, Huyghe began by selecting a set of images and descriptions and gave them to an individual. As this person recreated these images in their mind, their brain activity was captured by an fMRI scanner, and the data produced was given to a deep neural network, which attempted to reconstruct them, collaging together elements from its own bank of images.

The thousands of attempts of the deep neural network to construct visual representations of a human thought are presented here on large LED screens distributed throughout the gallery. The rhythms and pauses within the succession of images are endlessly modified by conditions in the gallery; sensors detecting light, temperature and humidity levels, the presence of insects, and the gaze of visitors produce a feedback loop.

The conditions of the space are constantly changing and inflecting each other. A community of flies living in the central gallery creates unrepeatable patterns on the domed ceiling as they emerge, grow and learn to fly; areas of the gallery walls have been sanded down, and the dust from the paint of previous exhibitions is tracked across the floor as visitors enter and depart.

Together, these elements make up an ecosystem that loops together human, animal and technological players. Each of these players may be indifferent to the others, but cannot help but affect what becomes visible on the screens as they enter, and after they leave.help but affect what becomes visible on the screens as they enter, and after they leave.

At the Serpentine