The Visual Culture module DISRUPTING AI concluded with a public event combining a conversation and a student exhibition. The evening opened with the conversation between LOUIS MORENO (Visiting Professor in the Visual Culture Department) and artist GERALD NESTLER, titled “AN AESTHETIC EDUCATION IN THE /LARGE LANGUAGE MODEL/ ERA OF GLOBALISATION”.In their discussion, Moreno and Nestler considered how the concept of the aesthetic might be reconfigured to apprehend the crisis dynamics of financial capitalism and artificial intelligence as they reshape the social conditions of sense, value, space, and time. Referring to Gayatri Spivak’s call for a new kind of aesthetic education, one capable of decoding the systems that aestheticise social reality in favour of financial abstraction and technological domination, the conversation addressed what it might mean to practise such an education in the globalising phase of machine learning.Following the talk, students of the Visual Culture module presented works developed over the course of the semester. Through a combination of critical analysis and experimental design processes, the exhibition brought together maps, graphics and video installations reflecting on the social, cultural and political issues raised by artificial intelligence in contemporary art and architecture.Photographs from the discussion and the exhibition are shown below.

With works by:
JOANNA CIECINSKA, XAVER LAPIERRE, GABOR RÖSER, MORITZ KREFT, DAVID FENZ, YIGIT CEPNI, CHANG DANG, FADIME GÜL CAPAN, DARIA SOPHIE STEPEN, GIL PHILIPP GRASSMANN, DENIZ CETIN, KATHARINA LUISE SÖRENSEN, LUCA LIGOTTI, ENZO BAYER, LEVI BUSCH, HALIME ÜNAL, POLINA BELSKAIA, IREM VARDAR, DOMINIK LENDL, CANAN BAL, SEBASTIAN BRANTNER, MERLE SCHARSCHMIDT, OLIVE HAY, INÈS BÉRARD, DANIEL GORB, JULIA HORACEK, CIARA MATESA, SRNA MILUTINOVIC, OLIVIA MOCANU, CANSU ÖZBAY, LARS SIMON PRZYBILLA, SARA REFIKU, AYSEL DILARA ÖZGÜL

Catacombs
Steindlgasse 21010 Wien

Monday, 19. January 2026
5pm – 8pm