Adversarial Acts: Subversive Artistic Practices with AI
With Bruce Eesly . Artist
Language English
Participants max. 10, aged 16 and older
Free admission with an exhibition ticket (15/8 euros)
Limited spots please apply via events@co-berlin.org by Aug 7, including 2–3 sentences about yourself and why you'd like to take part in the workshop. You will be notified by Aug 14.
We know AI as a tool in the service of power. The technology is built on the theft of creative and artistic work, the exploitation of click-workers and rare earth minerals. It enables mass surveillance, automated warfare and disinformation, while encoding existing ideologies and inequalities into its models. This lecture workshop asks if there is an alternative to this trajectory, if a critical and slow use of the technology is possible. After a short exercise on labelling and bias, we will look at artists and researchers who refuse, sabotage and hijack AI, who build their own infrastructures and who use the technology to expose what it would rather keep hidden. We will end by turning the question back to the room: given all of this, what do we actually do with it?
This lecture workshop is for artists, researchers and creatives who are interested in the subversive potential of AI for their own practice. No detailed technical knowledge is necessary, but it helps if you have a general understanding of the technology.
Bruce Eesly is a visual artist based in Berlin. Working with photography, archives and generative imaging technologies, he examines how photographic images, classification systems and technological infrastructures shape our understanding of reality. His work has been exhibited internationally at the Rencontres d'Arles (FR), Hangar Photo Art Center (BE) and Hebbel am Ufer (DE), among others. Eesly was named a Foam Talent and awarded for his work Endangered Gestures at the Prix Ars Electronica in 2026.
