Documentation of performance and installation process at @kumukunstimuuseum back in February ~
Sand is the second-most consumed natural resource in the world and is used in the production of computer screens and microchips. Data centres are practically built on sand and run on water. It would be poetic, if it weren’t for the irreversible amount of natural resources that they consume.
‘Failed Attempt_1 (Democary)’ is a temporary sand relief, recreating a CAPTCHA puzzle that I was asked to decipher when I lost access to my Wikipedia account. The A.I-generated word ‘Democary’ has no real meaning, but associatively leads to Democracy - Greek for people and power.
In the context of the exhibition at Kumu, I materialised the same online security puzzle that questioned my human existence, in a large-scale sculptural installation. The work temporarily obstructed the pathway for visitors entering and exiting the museum, inviting people to react to or resist the invasive dunes.
📷 Karolin Koster / Kumu Art Museum
I am pleased to announce that The National Gallery of Denmark @smkmuseum has acquired 'Untitled (Folders I-II)'. The two large-scale charcoal drawings are now a permanent part of the Royal Collection of Graphic Art!
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#worksonpaper #workonpaper #statensmuseumforkunst #stilllife #charcoaldrawing #andreasalbrectsen
I am very honored to finally share that two works from my exhibition at Galeria Anita Schwartz last year have been placed in the permanent collection of the Museu Nacional das Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro with the support of a generous donation by @nycarlsbergfondet
I am thankful and humbled that a big part of my first solo presentation in Brazil will stay accessible to the public.
A huge thanks to everyone involved in the process: @mnbario@anita.b.schwartz@galeria_anitaschwartz@biancabernnardo@christinebuhlandersen@marianne.torp
A few Installation views from ‘Triumph of Galatea: Art in the Age of A.I’ curated by @anders_harm
The exhibition comprises 12 artists and spans throughout the entire 5th floor of the @kumukunstimuuseum . One of the many rooms of the exhibition resembles a dystopian Apple Store and displays a new body of works on paper of mine, along various great works by Tilman Hornig
Photos: Stanislav Stepaško
The newly opened group exhibition at Kunsthal @sophienholm explores the complexities of Nostalgia and homesickness as a cross-cultural occurrence in the age of digital memory. Included in the exhibition is my charcoal drawing ‘Untitled (Folders III)’ from 2019. The work is on loan from the collection of Region Skåne. Thank you @kjaereline & @annabornkessel for the invitation
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Laboratorium for Nostalgi, Sophienholm Kunsthal, 2026. Foto Jan Søndergaard
The medium is the message, because the user is the content, as Marshall McLuhan predicted back in 1995, when the Internet was still a utopian space of globalist values, connections and information sharing. Much water has since passed under the bridge, and particularly through data centres to cool off the thousands of servers that hold all of our personal information and search inquiries in store. Today, searching the Internet is like finding your way through a house of mirrors. The A. I search agent will reflect anything but depth.
‘Go paperless and save trees’ was the motto of the digital revolution in the 2000s. Emails replaced physical letters and saved time - but it came with a hidden cost. The amount of e-waste increased exponentially, along with the carbon footprint of datacentres. A single email sent to 100 people has an average carbon footprint of 26g, which is more than a disposable coffee cup. The growing amount of ‘dark data’ stored in the cloud, which includes obsolete files and snapshots, is piling up. Invisible to the eye, our personal digital junkyards are polluting more than ever.
As a consumer, it is impossible to be in sync with the speed of technological innovation and the repercussions of it. This is because the tech industry
does not operate transparently, but through monopoly and control.
Drawing, on the other hand, is a democratic tool of communication – a direct visual language that transcends nationalities. It has historically been considered a truthful medium because of the immediate relationship between the eye and the hand of the artist. Because every mark is registered, and nothing can hide on the fragile surface of the paper. It is a slow agent, a document of time that follows the speed of thought, regardless of its surroundings. The paper medium alone belongs to the earliest forms of communication technology still in existence. As an example of the cultural impact of paper in contemporary lingo, the term ‘scrolling’ derives from the papyrus roll - dating back to
around 3000 BC.
Kunstnik Andreas Albrectsen tutvustab enda teosteseeriat „Robotilõksud“, mis on väljas näitusel „Galatea triumf. Kunst tehisaru ajastul“.
Joonistuste sarjas kasutab kunstnik sõnalis-visuaalseid kombinatsioone veebilehtedelt, mis kasutavad CAPTCHAsid (Completely Automated Public Turing tests to tell Computers and Humans Apart) ehk täisautomaatseid avalikke Turingi teste, et eristada inimesi arvutitest. Need on juhuslikult genereeritud visuaalselt moonutatud tähekombinatsioonid, mille eesmärk on tuvastada pahavara robotid, mis erinevaid isikuandmeid õngitsevad.
Täna kell 18.00 toimub Anders Härmi kuraatorituur näitusel.
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The artist Andreas Albrectsen introduces the works „Recaptures” exhibited at the exhibition „Triumph of Galatea: Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence“.
In this series of drawings, the artist uses verbal and visual combinations from websites that use CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing tests to tell Computers and Humans Apart). These are randomly generated, visually distorted combinations of letters designed to identify malicious bots that phish for personal information.
@andreasalbrectsen #kumu #kumuartmuseum #kumuexhibition #galateatriumf #triumphofgalatea
Looking forward to this upcoming exhibition at @sophienholm kunsthal ~ opening on April 30th
‘Laboratorium for nostalgi’ is a group survey of works that touch on the theme of Nostalgia as a complex cultural and emotional phenomenon. One of the theoretical anchor points in the mediation of the show, is the books of the late Svetlana Boym - the author behind ‘The Future of Nostalgia’ who had an early and deep theoretical influence on my drawing practice.
Looking forward to participate along a very interesting group of artists, and many thanks to @kjaereline for inviting me and @regionskane for lending out ‘Untitled (Folders III)’ from their collection.
‘Untitled (don’t type)’ 2025
Charcoal drawing on paper, 100 x 180 cm
Until August 9 at @kumukunstimuuseum , National Museum of Art in Estonia
“In this series of drawings, the artist uses verbal and visual combinations from websites that use CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing tests to tell Computers and Humans Apart) to distinguish computers from humans. These are randomly generated, visually distorted combinations of letters designed to identify malicious bots that phish for personal information. These fragmentary CAPTCHAs, individual words, come from physical books in libraries, fiction, and scientific texts, and have been torn from their original context.
Like contemporary pop art, magnifying and amplifying the scale of our everyday banality (proving to a computer that you are human), Albrectsen’s series of drawings is both a poetic and conceptual commentary on the human experience in the age of artificial intelligence.”
Taani-Brasiilia kunstnik Andreas Albrectseni performance „Ebaõnnestunud katse nr 1 (democary)“ toimus Kumu aatriumis.
Pärast arvukaid katseid oma Wikipedia kontole sisse logida loobus Albrectsen oma salasõna meeldetuletamisest ja hakkas dešifreerima moonutatud kirjatähti, mida robotilõks talle alternatiivse sisselogimisvõimalusena automaatselt genereeris. Üks tekstifragmentidest, mida Wikipedia tehisarumudel tal juurdepääsu saamiseks dešifreerida lasi, oli democary, valesti kirjutatud ingliskeelne termin democracy, „demokraatia“.
Teos on osa näitusest „Galatea triumf. Kunst tehisaru ajastul“.
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The Danish-Brazilian artist Andreas Albrectsen’s performance Failed Attempt #1 (democary) took place in Kumu’s atrium.
After numerous failed attempts to log into his Wikipedia account, Albrectsen gave up trying to recall his password and began deciphering the distorted letters automatically generated by the CAPTCHA service as an alternative login option. One of the text fragments that Wikipedia’s artificial intelligence model asked him to decipher in order to gain access was “democary”: a misspelling of the English term “democracy”.
The artwork is part of the exhibition “Triumph of Galatea: Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence“.
@andreasalbrectsen #kumu #kumuartmuseum #kumuexhibition #galateatriumf #triumphofgalatea
