HumanIA was not an event concerning artificial intelligence. It was an action.
A new apparatus in which the relationship between artistic practice, technology, and mediation was activated under real-world conditions. Not as a representation. As an operation.
HumanIA took place on 18 May 2023 at Espacio Caser (Málaga): a hybrid experience that combined live creation, public participation, and critical reflection regarding the emergence of artificial intelligence in contemporary art.
The approach did not originate from a closed theoretical framework. It originated from a situation: placing artists, algorithmic systems, and the public to operate simultaneously within the same space, without predefined hierarchies and without separation between production, mediation, and reception.
The action was conceived and curated by Juan Esteban as an experimental apparatus oriented towards activating, under real-world conditions, the relationship between artistic practice, artificial intelligence, and mediation.
Structure
The action was organised across two simultaneous planes:
Live production. Parallel processes of painting, digital production, and generation via AI systems, the starting points for which were proposed by the public in real time—cultural references, images, words, contextual stimuli—and incorporated immediately into the process. The work was configured as a visible process, not as a closed result.
Activated dialogue. Artists, specialists, and mediators discussed the issues that emerged from the experience itself: distributed authorship, the position of algorithmic systems within artistic practice, and the legal implications of AI regarding intellectual property.
The two planes did not operate separately. The conversation was constructed upon what the public observed being produced, and the production was influenced by the questions that the conversation raised.
Participants
Bruno Vázquez, visual artist.
Carlos Capella, digital artist.
Antonio Ortiz, artist and artificial intelligence strategist.
Matías Zavia, artificial intelligence specialist.
Carlos López, solicitor specialising in intellectual property.
Fernando Carmona, cultural manager as dialogue moderator.
Production
Espacio Caser (Málaga) provided full funding for the action and granted the use of the space. Curated by: Juan A. Esteban Ruiz.