Bildmuseet: Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg / Machine Auguries

With AI-generated birdsong under an artificial dawn sky, Machine Auguries warns of our infatuation with technology at the expense of nature. In Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg’s immersive sound and light installation, which opens at Bildmuseet on 18 October, the dawn chorus is slowly taken over by synthetic birdsong.

The exhibition will be available for media previews by appointment from Monday, 14 October. Welcome to submit your request.

As human actions decimate bird populations, artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg offers an imperfect replica of the dawn. The artist collated thousands of field recordings of bird species iconic to specific locations. These were used to train two neural networks working in a call-and-response process, a type of artificial intelligence called a Generative Adversarial Network, or GAN. Reflecting on how birds develop their song from listening to one another, each cycle or “epoch” of the machine’s learning is revealed as the GAN veers towards fidelity. As the dawn chorus progresses, the artificial birdsong becomes increasingly lifelike. We are no longer sure what is real when the chorus falls silent at the end of the work.

Capturing the experience of a place, Machine Auguries is an expanding archive of vanishing local realities. This collection celebrates the uniqueness of ecosystems but reminds us of their interconnectedness, as bird species repeat. As we play back these imperfect copies of the dawn inside the gallery, Machine Auguries reminds us of the impossibility of recreating nature and the urgent need to protect it.

Bildmuseet brings together three iterations of Machine Auguries for the first time. The first two recreate the dawn in London (2019) and Toledo, Ohio (2023), and are presented throughout the exhibition. In January 2025, a site-specific Umeå chorus will be added to the series.

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg (b. 1982) is a multidisciplinary artist based in London. Her practice examines humans’ fraught relationship with nature and technology. Her work has been shown worldwide, including at MoMA, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Royal Academy, London. She has a PhD from the Royal College of Art. In 2023, she won the S+T+ARTS Grand Prize – Artistic Exploration from the European Commission for her interspecies living artwork Pollinator Pathmaker. This is the artist’s first solo presentation in Sweden.

Machine Auguries, developed with Curator and Guest Professor Sarah Cook, is the first of two exhibitions at Bildmuseet that explore our future with AI technologies. The exhibition, which runs until 6 April 2025, is produced by Bildmuseet with support from Kempestiftelserna, the Arctic Centre at Umeå University and WASP-HS. Special thanks to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Macaulay Library for their support of this artwork.

PRESS PREVIEWS FROM 14 OCTOBER

The exhibition will be available for media previews by appointment from Monday, 14 October. Please submit your request to press.bildmuseet@umu.se. Press images.

OPENING ON ART FRIDAY, 18 OCTOBER

Welcome speech by Director Katarina Pierre at 19:00, followed by an artist talk by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg in conversation with Sarah Cook, Curator. Sound performance at 21:30: Improvising with Algorithms by Michael Lukaszuk. The evening will also see the opening of the exhibition Aseel AlYaqoub / The View from Above. Tours, creative workshop, live concert by Christian Kjellvander, DJs, bar and restaurant.

TALKS AND EVENTS

Throughout the exhibition, we will offer guided tours, talks, workshops and other events inspired by its theme.

Contact information

Requests for preview and interviews:

Helena Vejbrink, Media Contact

helena.vejbrink@bildmuseet.umu.se, +46 90 786 9073

Further information about the exhibition:

Brita Täljedal, Museum Curator

brita.taljedal@bildmuseet.umu.se, +46 90 786 7714