Poetics Policy

Inaugurating its new contemporary space, DE SARTHE is pleased to present Poetics Policy, its first solo exhibition for Hong Kong-based artist Lazarus Chan. Featuring an interconnected body of multimedia and interactive artworks, the immersive exhibition explores the nature of policy-making and the intricate ways in which it manifests in art, machine intelligence, and reality. An imagined simulation of the future, the exhibition is host to a living system built by AI but governed by the artist. Within this space, the essence of art lies not in the generated texts or imagery, but the policies that shape their creation. Poetics Policy opens September 20th and runs through November 15th.

In AI development, the term “policy” refers to a function through which a trained AI agent uses to decide its next action based on the current state of its environment. In human terms, it is analogous to the neural pathways we form when learning to react through experience – we create policies that our minds retain for future occurrences, collectively building a framework that determines our behavior. Policy-making, then, is not restricted to governments or institutions, but is embedded in technology, life, even art as a response to its surrounding environment.

In the history of civilization, products of culture, such as art and technology, have always evolved along with the exploration and discovery of new landscapes. The artist believes that as man-made machines reach beyond where humanity can physically exist, the former must be embraced as a medium. Under this consciousness, the exhibition, using custom software developed by the artist, employs artificial intelligence as an agent of artmaking, wherein the artist becomes the creator, observer, as well as subject to the artwork.