AI residences are trying to change the conversation around artificial art

During a recent exhibition in Copenhagen, visitors entered a dark room and were met by an unusual host: a jaguar It looked at the crowd, selected individuals and started to share stories about his daughter, his tropical forest and the fires that once threatened his house – the Bolivian Amazon. The live interaction with HUK, a creature led by AI, is adapted to each visitor according to the visual indices. Bolivian Australian artist Violeta Ayala created the play during an art Residence in MilaOne of the main IA research centers in the world.

These residences, generally hosted by technological laboratories, museums or university centers, offer artists access to tools, calculations and employees to support creative experimentation with AI. “My goal was to build a robot that could represent something more than human; Something incorruptible, ”explains Ayala. Ayala Jaguar is an intelligent use of early AI, but it is also emblematic of a broader movement: a rapid growth harvest of artists of artists who put the tools of AI directly in the hands of creators while shaping how technology is judged by the public, legislators and shorts.

Such residences have developed quickly in recent years, with new programs emerging in Europe, North America and Asia – such as the Max Planck Institute and the Seti Institute Programs. Many technologists describe them as a Soft Power shape. Artists who participated in AI Art residences were presented in galleries such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Pompidou center in Paris.

One of the new programs was launched by Villa Albertine, the American French cultural organization. At the beginning of 2025, the organization created a dedicated AI track, adding four new residents a year to the 60 artists, thinkers and creators it welcomes each year. The initiative was announced at an AI summit in Paris with the French Minister of Culture Rachida Dati and supported by Fiji Simo, CEO of Openai applications.

“We do not choose the parties as much as the opening space for the investigation,” explains Mohamed Bouabdallah, director of Villa Albertine. “Some residents can criticize AI or explore its risks.” In 2024, Villa Albertine also organized a summit entitled Arts in the Age of IA, attracting more than 500 OPENAI, Mozilla, Sag-Aftra and French and French copyright participants, according to Bouabdallah.

Bouabdallah says that these programs are designed to “select the artist, not just their work”. They provide artists with the time and resources necessary to explore artistic projects that use AI. “Even if someone largely uses AI, he must articulate his intention. It is not only about production – it is paternity.” As he says, “the tool must be behind humans”.

This type of cultural framing is intended to promote artistic production, but it can also influence the way in which AI is considered by the public, pushing the often negative perception around the art of AI. “A developer of the AI ​​may want to change minds on what is legitimate by exciting the use of AI in a form that resembles traditional artistic practice,” explains Trystan Goetze, ethicist and director of Cornell University. “It could make it more acceptable.”

Residences can support specific artists, but they do not respond to broader concerns about AI art. “The modification of the context of random users encouraging the models in Discord into formal residences does not change the basic problems,” explains Goetze. “The work is still in progress.”

These legal questions around authorship and remuneration remain unresolved. In the United States, collective appeal By artists against AI stability, Midjourney and others test whether the generative models trained on the work protected by copyright constitute equitable use.

The courts will decide on these questions, but public feeling can shape the limits: if the art generated by AI is culturally perceived as derivative or exploiting, it becomes more difficult to defend its legitimacy in matters of policy or law, and vice versa.

A similar dynamic took place over a century ago. In 1908, the United States Supreme Court judge These piano rolls, then a new format for the reproduction of music, were not subject to copyright, because they were not readable by the human eye. The generalized game of musicians, publishers and the public prompted the congress to adopt the law on copyright law of 1909, introducing a compulsory license system which required payment for mechanical reproductions.

“These models have a recognizable aesthetic,” explains Goetze. “The more we are exposed to these visuals, the more” normal “they may seem.” This normalization, he speculates, could soften resistance not only to the art of AI but also to AI in other areas.

“There has always been a debate on inspiration against plagiarism,” explains Bouabdallah. “The true value here is to give artists the space to tackle this themselves.”

Ayala argues that “the problem is not that the copies of AI – humans constantly copy – is that the advantages are not also distributed: large companies benefit the most.”

Despite these challenges, Ayala considers residences as important experimentation sites. “We cannot simply criticize that AI was built by privileged men, we must actively build alternatives,” she says. “This is not what I want AI to be: that’s already what it is. Transmitting to us as a species in the way we rely, we remember and co-creative. ”