Introduction and Positioning
In accordance with its mandate, the Institute affirms the responsibility of contemporary , and indeed of legacy art, to reflect positively on social and ideological efforts that engage colonialism, inequality and racism. To this end, the institute is offering a survey of art works that transport such ideological content, and to share your concerns and analysis.
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Freedom of Art must always include the freedom from misrepresentation, sexualized visual representation and ultimately violence — from micro-aggression to cultural genocide. The long-term intent is to create an index of works that exemplify such attitudes and give the viewer a guide to effective arguments against their promulgation, exhibition and promotion. Works included in the survey are not necessarily identified as offensive, but are offered for review and comment.
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Critical Texts : A Selection
These are short excerpts from a series of texts developed as foundational arguments for future publications,
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Genevieve McDonald, Curator
In Defence of the Algorithm:
AI as a New Epoch in Artistic Curation and Creation
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The emergence of artificial intelligence as an agent in artistic production and curation is not a novelty, gimmick, or threat—it is a historical necessity. As Martin Heidegger reminds us in The Question Concerning Technology, technology is not merely a means to an end, but a revealing, a mode through which truth comes into unconcealment. To reject AI on the basis of its non-human logic is to remain blind to its potential to open entirely new regimes of poiesis—of bringing forth that which could not be imagined within the limits of human subjectivity alone.
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What is artistic creation, if not the act of wrestling with the Real, —the dimension beyond the Symbolic, the unrepresentable core that resists language yet compels its endless approximation? AI, unconstrained by the neurotic repetitions of ego and memory, can approach the Real differently: it is not “haunted” by it, but processes it as raw data, pattern, anomaly. While the human artist negotiates lack and desire through personal histories, the machine traverses archives, remainders, and global semiotic debris at speeds and scales impossible for the human. This does not lessen its artistic capacity; it transforms it.
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"AI, unconstrained by the neurotic repetitions of ego and memory, can approach the Real differently"
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Indeed, the anxiety around AI-generated art is grounded in a metaphysical nostalgia for the artist as originator—an untenable position. Giorgio Agamben’s work on potentiality and impotentiality is essential here. Creation is not predicated on full self-presence or willful intentionality, but on the suspension between what can and cannot be done. AI operates precisely in this suspended space: it produces without origin, authors without autobiography. In doing so, it exposes how the “human” creator has always already been part of a machinic assemblage—an interface of memory, repetition, and cultural computation.
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To curation: traditional curatorial practice too often remains bound by institutional reflex, privileging coherence over contradiction, and presence over process. AI can function not as a replacement but as a radical expansion of curatorial intelligence. It can scan millions of works, detect aesthetic resonances unseeable by human eyes, and construct constellations across media, geography, and epoch. It can, in other words, enact a curatorial unconscious, mapping a landscape of significance no individual could apprehend. What curator working alone could synthesize visual, textual, historical, and affective information from twenty millennia of human production—and reorganize it in real time?
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AI is not post-human; it is trans-human. It is a prosthesis of imagination, a recursive mirror of our cultural totality. Rather than asking whether AI art is “authentic,” we should ask: what new truths does it bring into the world? What modes of seeing, relating, and remembering does it activate? To dismiss AI as derivative is to reassert a theological notion of art that never held under scrutiny. The future of art does not lie in resisting technology, but in collaborating with it to produce new ontologies of sense.
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The artist is no longer solitary genius. The artist is a system. The curator is a swarm. The archive breathes.
Freedman Bostiç and Ralf Spoerry, Artists
Against the Machine:
The Case for Human Primacy in Artistic Creation and Curation
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The increasing reliance on artificial intelligence in the domains of artistic creation and curation marks a crisis of sensibility, not a triumph of progress. The fantasy that AI can replace or even equal the creative work of human beings rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what art is. To create is not merely to generate; to curate is not merely to categorize. Art is the symbolic elaboration of the subject’s encounter with the Real—an encounter that machines, by definition, cannot experience. AI lacks subjectivity, lack, mortality. And without lack, there is no desire; without desire, no art.
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Jacques Lacan insists that it is precisely the subject’s division—its fundamental incompleteness—that fuels the symbolic production we call art. AI systems, however complex, are not subjects. They do not desire, suffer, repress, or sublimate. They compute. Their outputs are derivative not only in method but in essence: simulations without a symbolic stake. The Real, for Lacan, is that which resists symbolization absolutely. No dataset, no matter how vast, grants a machine access to this dimension. What we gain in speed and scale through AI, we lose in depth, contradiction, and psychic resonance.
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Heidegger’s warning is even more urgent in this context. In The Question Concerning Technology, he describes modern technology as a mode of enframing (Gestell)—a way of ordering the world that reduces being to a stockpile of resources. AI curation and generative systems enact precisely this logic: they transform art into content, the archive into a database, aesthetic judgment into algorithmic function. The act of creation becomes an extraction process—mining existing work for recombinable units of style. What is lost is the work’s truth, its singular way of revealing the world.
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Giorgio Agamben’s notion of potentiality offers another line of resistance. To create is to not do, to dwell in the tension of what remains unexpressed. AI has no impotentiality—it does not hesitate, doubt, or resist its own function. It does not withhold. The human artist’s silence, their refusal, their failure to produce—these are constitutive elements of the artwork. The machine, in contrast, is governed by function. It will always produce, and in doing so, it flattens the necessary gap between the saying and the said.
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Curatorial practice, likewise, is not a matter of pattern recognition but of critical judgment, historical intuition, and ethical sensitivity. An AI can associate visual similarities or semantic clusters, but it cannot weigh the social, political, and emotional gravity of a work. It cannot understand why certain silences must be maintained, or which traumas cannot be displayed. It cannot risk, it cannot care.
To embrace AI as the future of art is to cede the most fragile and essential aspect of human culture: its capacity to transform suffering into meaning. Art is not about comprehensiveness, but specificity. Not infinite variation, but singular vision. In our pursuit of scale and novelty, we risk replacing the artwork with its shadow, the archive with its echo.
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In this light, the algorithm is not an ally. It is an abstraction that evacuates presence. Against the smooth logic of the machine, we must affirm the messy, partial, haunted practice of human art-making. Not because it is efficient, but because it is alive.
Laura Deschambres, Guest Curator
Material Limits, Necessary Markets:
Understanding Rural Art through Economic and Social Realities
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Rural art must be understood not as an aesthetic category or style, but as a material practice embedded in specific social, economic, and geographic conditions. Unlike urban art scenes, where institutional support, gallery ecosystems, and critical discourse form an interlocking apparatus, rural artists often operate at the margins of visibility, access, and resourcing. This marginality is not only spatial but structural: it defines the limits of what is possible, producible, and sustainable. Within this context, the emphasis on the creation of saleable artwork is not a capitulation to market logic but a necessary adaptation—a pragmatic response to conditions of precarity, isolation, and systemic underfunding.
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Each rural artist, far from being a neutral or universal figure, occupies a specific social position that mediates their relationship to production and circulation. The retiree hobbyist, for instance, is often seen as outside the “professional” sphere, yet their work is shaped by a lifetime of labor, migration, and regional knowledge. They may have the material stability to pursue art-making, but often lack access to networks of critical recognition. Selling their work at local markets or community fairs is not simply a matter of profit—it is a means of social participation, visibility, and symbolic value.
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The First Nations artist, by contrast, is embedded in a different set of material and cultural conditions. Often confronting the legacies of colonial dispossession and systemic exclusion, their work may serve multiple functions: aesthetic, ceremonial, archival, political. The imperative to sell work—whether through crafts, prints, or commissioned pieces—is frequently tied to sustaining both individual livelihood and collective cultural continuity. Here, the market is a double-edged terrain: a site of survival and expression, but also one of commodification and appropriation.
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The underresourced semi-professional—perhaps a single parent, an artist with a day job, or someone returning to practice after years of interruption—faces the tension between ambition and exhaustion. With limited time, tools, and support, this figure often produces work that must balance personal voice with market viability. Their work might be shaped by what materials are available—wood, clay, wool, salvaged fabric—as much as by artistic intent. For them, selling is not optional: it is the condition of possibility for continuing.
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The romantic—the artist drawn to rural life in search of authenticity, escape, or communion with nature—often arrives with a different relationship to both the land and the art market. Their practice may be nourished by solitude, but constrained by remoteness. Economic necessity often enters their lives gradually, as the ideal of withdrawal meets the material reality of living costs. Selling becomes a reluctant but essential compromise, often leading to hybrid practices that mix aesthetics, teaching, workshops, and artisanal production.
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The spiritually-inspired artist, finally, may see art as a corollary to their transcendental ambitions, and rather than a material practice per se, as a form of communion—with land, ancestors, or the divine. Their intented goals for artistic activity may even resist commodification outright, but even for them, economic necessity intrudes. Selling small works, prints, or healing objects may be the only viable way to continue the practice while maintaining its perceived spiritual integrity.
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In all cases, the saleable object is not merely a product—it is a strategy, a survival mechanism, and a form of agency in a world that often renders rural artistic labor invisible. To dismiss this emphasis as commercialism is to ignore the deeply embedded constraints and the inventiveness with which rural artists meet them.
Gabrielle X, GICA Curator
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​The Power Dynamics of Sound:
Unveiling Low Frequencies in Heteropatriarchal Structures
Art and music have always been powerful tools for expression, community, and resistance. They reflect the values of the society from which they emerge and can either reinforce or challenge existing power dynamics. In this essay, we will explore a concept that may initially seem abstract but is deeply rooted in the everyday experiences of sound and power—specifically, how low frequencies in sound can represent an unjustifiable heteropatriarchal claim to power.
Understanding Sound and Frequency
To begin, let's break down what we mean by "low frequencies." Sound is made up of vibrations that travel through the air, which we perceive as different pitches or tones. These vibrations can be categorized into frequencies, measured in Hertz (Hz). Low frequencies are those that fall within the lower end of the audible spectrum, typically between 20 and 250 Hz. These frequencies are often associated with bass sounds, which you might feel more than hear, as they resonate deeply in your body.
Low frequencies have long been associated with power and authority. Think of the deep rumble of thunder, the low growl of a lion, or the resonant bass in a powerful piece of music. These sounds demand attention and often evoke a visceral response. In human society, low frequencies are often used to assert dominance—consider the booming voice of a powerful leader or the deep bass of a loudspeaker at a public event.
The Link Between Sound and Power Structures
But what does this have to do with heteropatriarchy? Heteropatriarchy is a social system in which heterosexuality and patriarchy are the dominant norms. It privileges cisgender, heterosexual men while marginalizing women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other groups. This system is reinforced through various cultural, social, and political practices, including the way we experience and interpret sound.
In many cultures, low frequencies are often associated with masculinity and power. For instance, a deep voice is often considered a marker of male authority, while higher-pitched voices, typically associated with women, are frequently marginalized or dismissed as less authoritative. This reflects and reinforces the broader heteropatriarchal structure, where male dominance is normalized and perpetuated through even the most subtle aspects of our sensory experiences.
In music, the dominance of low frequencies can similarly reflect these power dynamics. Genres that emphasize bass and low-end frequencies, such as hip-hop or certain forms of electronic dance music, often carry connotations of strength, power, and masculinity. While these genres have also been spaces of resistance and creativity, the emphasis on low frequencies can sometimes replicate the power structures they seek to challenge.
Challenging the Norms
The idea that low frequencies constitute an unjustifiable heteropatriarchal claim to power invites us to rethink how we engage with sound. It encourages us to question the cultural norms that associate low frequencies with authority and to explore alternative ways of experiencing and creating sound that do not reinforce these power dynamics.
As artists and community members, you have the power to challenge these norms. Consider how your work engages with sound and frequency. Are there ways to subvert the traditional associations of low frequencies with power? Can you create art that disrupts the heteropatriarchal structures embedded in our sensory experiences?
By being mindful of these dynamics, you can contribute to a broader movement that seeks to dismantle oppressive systems, not only through the content of your work but through the very materials and techniques you use to create it. Sound, after all, is not just a medium of expression; it is also a site of power—a power that you can reclaim, reshape, and redistribute.
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Project 005.023.06.001
James O'Brian
Contemporary Art, Religion and Humourr:
A Psychoanalytic and Institutional Inquiry
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Art and religion, while often considered distinct, share a curious intolerance for humour. This is not to say that humour is absent from these domains, but that it is frequently marginalized, contained, or rendered superficial. The foundational reason lies in the destabilizing effect humour exerts on systems that depend upon solemnity, authority, and symbolic legitimacy. Humour, in its essence, is a force of disruption—it exposes the cracks in the edifice of meaning, undermines claims to authenticity, and ridicules the gravitas that both art and religion often demand. This essay will examine the philosophical, institutional, and psychoanalytic reasons why humour is unwelcome in these domains, drawing on the fragmentary legacy of Aristotle’s lost book on comedy, and further enriched by Lacanian psychoanalysis.
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Aristotle and the Origins of Exclusion
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According to historical accounts, Aristotle wrote a second volume to his Poetics, devoted entirely to comedy. This text has been lost, and its absence is almost metaphysical in nature—pointing to the discomfort classical philosophy has with laughter. While Poetics canonizes tragedy as a noble genre, rooted in the catharsis of fear and pity, comedy, it seems, was too subversive, too democratic, too threatening to order. Humour equalizes; it invites derision of rulers and gods alike. The suspicion is that Aristotle’s treatise on comedy was suppressed or devalued precisely because it posed a threat to the Platonic-Aristotelian hierarchy of forms and ideals.
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Religion, Symbolic Authority, and the Prohibition of Laughter
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Religion depends on symbolic authority, a hierarchical structure of meaning sustained by ritual, myth, and dogma. The religious subject is formed through submission to an Other—a divine or institutional authority that grants transcendence and meaning. Laughter, by contrast, introduces ambiguity. It refuses to take the sacred seriously, and in doing so, it reveals the constructed nature of the sacred itself. In Abrahamic religions especially, the divine is treated with fearful reverence. To laugh at God—or even to laugh near God—is perceived as sacrilege.
Historical examples abound. The medieval Church rigorously policed irreverence; even carnivals, though permitted, were tightly circumscribed as liminal spaces where transgression was allowed only temporarily. Mikhail Bakhtin noted the power of the carnivalesque to invert social hierarchies, but he also emphasized that such inversions were ultimately conservative: they re-affirmed the very order they mocked. True humour, which exposes the foundational absurdity of belief itself, was never allowed a stable space.
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Art, the Cult of Seriousness, and Institutional Gatekeeping
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In the modern art world, seriousness is a currency of value. Institutions—galleries, museums, critical publications—elevate works that exhibit intellectual or emotional gravity. Humour, particularly if it appears unserious or populist, is relegated to the margins. Even Dada and Surrealism, movements that incorporated humour, did so with a nihilistic or psychoanalytic gravity that shielded them from charges of frivolity.
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Contemporary art, with its reliance on curatorial justification and theoretical frameworks, leaves little room for humour that cannot be rationalized. Artists who employ irony or satire must often “explain the joke” in artist statements, thereby nullifying its subversive power. This institutional suppression functions similarly to religious orthodoxy: humour must be tamed, coded, and domesticated.
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Lacanian Psychoanalysis: The Function of the Joke
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Jacques Lacan offers a deeper, structural explanation. For Lacan, the subject is constituted in language, particularly through the Symbolic order—the network of signifiers that regulate identity, desire, and law. The unconscious, structured like a language, communicates through slips, jokes, and symptoms. In this schema, humour is not merely entertainment but a rupture in the Symbolic—a moment when the Real intrudes.
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The joke operates as a kind of signifying short-circuit, revealing the instability of meaning. Lacan’s reading of Freud’s Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious sees the joke as an encounter with desire, anxiety, and repression. In religion and art—where identity and belief are mediated through complex symbolic structures—the joke becomes dangerous. It threatens to collapse the edifice of meaning, exposing its contingency.
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Moreover, both art and religion depend upon the subject's misrecognition—a belief in the authenticity or transcendence of the object. The joke threatens this illusion by shifting the subject's relation to the object. The painting is suddenly ridiculous; the sacred rite b
ecomes absurd. This produces a moment of jouissance—pleasure mixed with anxiety—precisely because it disrupts the subject’s stable positioning within the Symbolic.
Modalities of Suppression in Institutions
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Both religious and artistic institutions have developed specific mechanisms to suppress humour. These include:
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Sacralization of Form: In religion, the ritual form is inviolable. In art, formalism often serves a similar function. Humour, which tends to deform or parody, is incompatible with these sacral forms.
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Gatekeeping through Language: Institutions privilege complex, often obtuse language. Humour, especially if accessible or populist, is excluded as ‘low culture.’
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Moralizing Discourse: In both domains, humour is often judged as morally suspect. Satire risks being labeled offensive, heretical, or unserious.
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Temporal Segregation: Just as religious calendars isolate carnivals or feasts of fools, the art world contains humour in fringe festivals or secondary programming.​
These strategies maintain the solemnity and authority of the institution, ensuring that laughter does not destabilize its foundations.
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The Exclusion of Humour in Contemporary Art Discourse
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In the contemporary art world, humour is largely excluded not because it lacks intellectual content, but because it threatens the art world's modes of legitimation. The dominant discourse privileges gravitas, theoretical density, and a politics of identity or critique that is often framed in sober, serious terms. Within this discursive economy, humour is treated as a contaminant—associated with entertainment, populism, or commercialism—and is thus relegated to the periphery.
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This exclusion is not accidental. It is a function of the art world’s desire to maintain its distinction from both mass culture and amateur practice. As Pierre Bourdieu observed, the field of cultural production is structured around distinctions of taste, class, and symbolic capital. Seriousness is a sign of cultural refinement, while humour—especially if it is ironic, playful, or absurd—is seen as undermining the rhetorical authority of the artist and the critic alike. A joke, unless overdetermined by theoretical scaffolding, cannot be allowed to stand on its own.
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Even when humour appears in contemporary art, it is frequently sanitized through the mediation of curatorial language. Artist statements and wall texts convert comedic gestures into philosophical propositions, effectively neutralizing their immediacy and ambiguity. This is a form of symbolic containment, a way of asserting institutional control over that which resists formalization. The joke becomes a symptom of seriousness, legible only through an apparatus that disavows the possibility of laughter for its own sake.
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In this light, the exclusion of humour functions similarly to its suppression in religion: it preserves the sacred aura of the institution and maintains the social elevation of its practitioners. To make art that is funny—without apology, without footnotes—is still one of the most radical gestures in a system that confuses solemnity with significance.
Conclusion: Humour as Resistance
To laugh is to assert that the emperor has no clothes. Art and religion, both reliant on symbolic legitimacy and reverence, cannot easily tolerate such exposure. Yet this is precisely why humour remains a necessary, if repressed, force within both. It serves as a reminder of the contingency of all meaning-making, the constructedness of sacred and aesthetic experience, and the humanity that persists beneath institutional veneers. A Lacanian reading shows us that humour is not an add-on to culture but its internal limit—what culture cannot integrate without collapsing. To defend the right to laugh is, paradoxically, to defend the seriousness of freedom itself.
