The Wrong Biennale's theme for 2025 is artificial intelligence, a new reality of our time that opens up a vast field for creative exploration, providing a backdrop against which artistic practices - whether visual, video or textual - can flourish and reinvent themselves. In this context, our pavilion, entitled “Perspicacité” /“Perspicacity”, is transformed into a veritable research laboratory.
“Perspicacity” embodies our desire to explore how artistic creators transcend the limits of meaning and general perception. As curator and artist, it gives me great pleasure to see how enthusiastically artists respond to our invitation to push back the boundaries of creation.
I would like to express my deep gratitude to all the artists involved. Their work, which I already know and admire, is an inexhaustible source of inspiration. I look forward to discovering their proposals, which promise to enrich this new edition of "The Wrong" Biennial.
Through this adventure, we are called upon to redefine our understanding of art, to face the unexpected and admire human creativity while being aware of the inevitable drifts in the age of artificial intelligence.
Perspicaciousness or "getting it" is an understanding of things that leads to clarity “Not getting it” comes from faulty generalizations when adapting to new situations. “Getting it” goes beyond facts or even being able to explain them. It’s the moment when the pieces click into place, when understanding turns into realization -- the difference between knowing the definition of a metaphor and suddenly recognizing how the metaphor reshapes your perspective.
Art should be worth looking at, creating a parallel space on-line to that which internet users are accustomed to. Images on internet show a striking homogeneity that has been shaped by algorithms and design trends, echoing early photography, where despite technical limits, even then, a distinction emerged between snapshots and art. Online, original expression occurs through the understanding and reinterpretation of dominant dialogues within a sea of repetition.
Internet art has always reflected the architecture of networks, shaping perception and self-image through the mirrored surfaces of websites or social media. Interactivity in this space involves listening, synthesizing, and responding; a dynamic that sustains engagement and defines online communication, but often this participation distorts truth, gradually eroding any sense of stable reality. As digital interactions increasingly shape our understanding, curated and constructed “truths” begin to feel more authentic than objective facts. Once champions of free expression, internet platforms now appear to function as systems of control driven by surveillance, data extraction, and algorithmic manipulation. Artists navigate this terrain with trepidation, competing for visibility amid trends and engagement metrics. Yet, even within these constraints, digital tools hold immense creative potential, offering spaces for innovation that reach beyond commercial pressures.
Historically, the evolution of internet communication has been shaped by a commitment to openness. Tim Berners-Lee developed HTML to embody the principle of universal access and decentralized participation. Bitcoin introduced trustless systems through blockchain technology, and NFTs extended this decentralization into digital art and ownership. OpenAI, was originally established as a non-profit, focused on safe and beneficial AGI, encouraging open-source research, ethical discourse, and broad accessibility.
Part of our commitment as artists is to express a social dimension, a sense of shared purpose and a playfulness that counters the banality of a materialistic culture. The network offers unprecedented access to diverse audiences, yet within this openness, artists often engage in selective sharing; crafting identities through self-presentation rather than vulnerability.
The advantage of on-line art is both the one-to-one exchange that is shared with a viewer and that the work simultaneously reaches a wider audience than it would in a gallery situation. Finally, any art created for the network will inevitably reflect the conceptual architecture and evolving aesthetics of the systems that carry it.
What are the criteria for participation? We would like the exhibition to be inclusive. The Wrong Biennale is an independent, non-profit, multicultural, decentralized, and collaborative art biennale created to showcase digital art to a global audience. Although this year’s 7th biennale is largely dedicated to exploring the artistic potential of artificial intelligence, we propose an exhibition of art on-line that may or may not use AI, but more importantly, responds to the communications networks as a principal means of conception, dialogue and distribution.
What does it mean to look at AI today?
The Seventh Wrong Biennale– the International Online Digital Art Biennale – extended an invitation to curators to conceptualise an online Pavilion, through which they could showcase artistic visions. In this edition, the Biennale placed particular emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), not merely as a technological apparatus, but also as a catalyst for innovation, inclusivity, and novel forms of artistic expression."
Perspicax Pavilion
The decision to name our pavilion Perspicax was made collectively by my colleagues Laurent Bouchard, Andres Manniste and myself. The term derives from the word perspicacity and the Latin perspicax ("to see through").
It originates from the notion of being able to see beyond the obvious.
To understand what is hidden, subtle, or complex.
Why AI? Why Perspicacity?
Because we live in a world driven by AI, a world saturated with data, generated images, and automated responses. Perspicacity helps us maintain a critical mind and resist confusion.
35 artists
We invited artists to consider where AI might have an effect in their creative processes. For some, it was a technical tool. For others, a subject of exploration. For still others, a constraint to be overcome. Or even an alter ego with which to engage in dialogue.
The works submitted address the subject of AI with subtlety, creativity, perspective, and critical thinking.
They encompass a variety of formats, including visual, textual, audio, interactive, and immersive components.
They confront AI, its algorithms, biases, fictions, and memory.
They also explore the potential of collaborative writing with machines and the fragility of digital memory.
Some artists subvert AI, while others question or sublimate it.
In doing so, they challenge the very foundations of our relationships with technology, creativity, and humanity itself.
Doubt… ever-present
In a world full of fake news, AI amplifies the visual, the sounds, and the intellectual ideas into a cacophony. Every day, we see images, stories, and voices whose truth is uncertain. What is real, what is made up, what is manipulated?
“I saw it with my own eyes…”
Really? Even though images can be retouched and recreated to deceive?
“I heard it with my own ears…”
Really? A grandmother receives a phone call from her grandson, who is urgently pleading for her help. She recognizes his voice. However, it is AI that is impersonating, deceiving, sowing fear.
Even our thoughts are no longer safe!
They are absorbed, re-coded, reused without authorization.
Our stories slip away from us.
Even politicians are exploiting the chaos, spreading dangerous ideas, justifying wars, sowing mistrust.
AI is reshaping our world.
It is a destabilising force.
And yet, it also fascinates us.
At the core of doubt lies a promise: the possibility of hope.
Light… ahead
Perspicacity in the face of AI means vigilance and discernment.
In medicine and science, AI turns overwhelming data into discoveries.
Accelerating research, identifying treatments, opening new paths.
In art, AI may seem a threat to the uniqueness of the creative process.
However, it can also emerge as an unexpected ally, fertile in exploration and invention.
Ultimately,
Perspicacity keeps the human at the centre of progress.
It unmasks false claims and false promises.
It resists fear.
It resists manipulation.
This is why Perspicax ...
Stephen Hawking warned: Advanced AI could be a danger to humanity.
But
The Perspicax Pavilion
Perspicax Pavilion is a space dedicated to the pursuit of artistic experimentation. A place conducive to both reflection and play, to détournement and poetic invention.
However, the Pavilion also serves as a tribute:
To the ability to see beyond limits.
To pierce through appearances, codes, and illusions.
And to reach new forms of creation, sharing, and human presence.
