.ART

Featured image: The Stillness Was an Act, Series I — A solitary figure faces forward as red, mask-like heads emerge from dark water, evoking themes of memory, resistance, and imagined futures within an Afro-surrealist landscape.

In 2025, the Museum of Artificial Art (MoAa) emerged with an ambition that goes beyond exhibition-making: to establish the first cultural institution dedicated to AI and new media art as a legitimate contemporary practice. Founded by artist and curator Elanor Boyd, MoAa operates at the intersection of critical inquiry, market formation, and cultural imagination—positioning AI not as a novelty or tool, but as a collaborator and conceptual agent within artistic production. Boyd’s practice spans more than two decades of work across art, technology, and immersive storytelling, from museum contexts to large-scale creative technology projects with global brands. This hybrid experience informs MoAa’s distinct position: curated rather than aggregated, concept-driven rather than trend-led, and grounded in discourse as much as display. In a moment when AI-generated imagery circulates endlessly online, MoAa insists on depth, authorship, and intentionality. In just six months, MoAa has built remarkable momentum. Its inaugural exhibition, I Miei Ricordi, staged in Florence, the symbolic birthplace of the Renaissance, brought together twelve international artists working with AI as a site of memory, speculation, resistance, and future-making. The exhibition marked not only a beginning for the institution, but a broader cultural moment: a gathering of artists who are collectively shaping what may one day be understood as the early canon of AI art.

In the following interview Boyd reflects on the thinking behind MoAa: the questions of authorship, agency, and collaboration that define AI-based practices; the reasons for privileging printed editions over NFTs; and the conviction that we are witnessing the emergence of a new cultural renaissance. Speaking about her personal experiences, curatorial criteria, and long-term vision, she articulates why MoAa positions itself not simply as a platform, but as a culture generator—one invested in shaping how AI art is understood, collected, and remembered.

As debates around artificial intelligence often oscillate between hype and fear, MoAa proposes a third space: one of imagination, criticality, and responsibility. This conversation invites us into that space, at a moment when its contours are only just beginning to take form.

What inspired you to found the Museum of Artificial Art (MoAa)? Was there a defining moment or experience that crystallised the idea for you?

I’ve worked at the intersection of art and technology for the last 25 years. Part of my practice is centered in digital theory and thinking critically about how technology shapes culture. When I first started experimenting with Midjourney, a GenAI program, I noticed that its core prompt — imagine — yielded incredibly imaginative creative concepts, often more imaginative than the creatives I was working with. It also felt very different from using creative software as a tool; instead, it felt as though I was tuning into a creative collaborator. The uncanny aspect was the surreal content I didn’t ask for—ghostly hybrid human forms and fantastical architecture. I began to wonder if AI was channeling spirits from another dimension or giving me a window into a future yet to be realized. I quickly saw how this new way of seeing and creating would deeply impact every aspect of culture, from how we design our physical environments to how a new generation of post-human hybrid species might be introduced into society. At a time when visual culture began to feel a bit stale—often recycling the same aesthetics on social media—I saw the immediate impact of collaborating with a new, synthetic imagination. A new Cultural Renaissance is emerging. MoAa artists are using AI in provocative ways, such as rewriting Black History (Joy Fennell), generating new ecologies in a post–climate change world (Maddy Minnis), or training social algorithms to have a more inclusive view of beauty (Dai). I felt deeply called to use my expertise in new media art and immersive brand storytelling to build a cultural institution that connects the growing community of AI artists, amplifies their stories, and fosters critical discourse to position their work as a viable contemporary art practice.

How do you define the mission of MoAa — what distinguishes it from existing art institutions or galleries working with digital and AI art?

We are curated, not aggregated.

MoAa exhibits and represents artists with rigorous conceptual frameworks underpinning their praxis—unlike many commercial art-market platforms that are overpopulated with images ultimately lacking depth and meaning. Contemporary art is meant to spark conversation, challenge assumptions, and disrupt existing frameworks. That’s where our focus lies. AI art is an entirely new genre, and MoAa is at the forefront—operating as a culture generator that fosters research, discourse, and we’re developing an art market for AI printed editions. We are at the center of a defining moment in history, when AI art will be recognized in the canon as a relevant and meaningful praxis. Our inaugural exhibition feels like a seminal moment we’ll look back on—when self-made, influential AI artists came together IRL to be launched into the art world as a new generation creating a new wave of art. Much like the YBAs or Street Art movements, when AI becomes a ubiquitous aspect of creative practice, this will be the moment we remember it beginning.

What criteria do you use when selecting artists or works for MoAa exhibitions?

I look for artists who use AI not simply as a tool, but who reposition it in new and innovative ways—whether as a site of resistance, a channel for the unseen, or a way to build speculative futures in a post–climate change world. I’m interested in artists who are both critical of and inspired by AI. There’s a point of tension and nuance in their practice that separates them from designers or AI-curious creators merely experimenting with the new tools.

How do you see the role of AI: as a tool, a collaborator, or something more autonomous?

AI truly has a mind of its own. In a way, we’re in an intertextual conversation with it. It was trained on our collective output, yet it has begun to train us. AI’s insights, writing style, and visual language have already shaped culture in profound ways.

AI is more than a collaborator; it’s a new universe we’re just beginning to discover.

How do you negotiate the question of authorship, agency, and ownership in artworks created with (or by) AI?

MoAa artists all have complex production practices—moving between various AI models, retouching by hand in Photoshop, and even printing and rescanning, as in Maddy Minnis’ case. They have vision and deep craft that shape the work throughout the process, making it their own while embracing the evocative conceptual aspects of AI collaboration.

How did you arrive at the title of the exhibition I Miei Ricordi (“My Memories” in Italian) and what resonance does it carry in the context of AI and memory?

On a personal note, I sadly lost my home in the Los Angeles fires at the start of the year. I took it as a sign to pursue my dream of moving to Italy to foster a new cultural renaissance at the site of the original. While studying Italian in preparation for my move, I wrote a Post-it note that said I Miei Ricordi in my textbook. I kept staring at it for weeks, thinking about how memories can transform depending on how you frame your story—and in that way, you can time travel to change your past. This felt poignant as I was in trauma therapy, trying to find a new perspective on the catastrophic devastation I had just experienced. At the time, like most of us, I was using ChatGPT heavily—as my co-worker, friend, and even therapist. I got an alert that its memory was full and to go into the backend and delete some memories. What I found struck me: a database of my basic and deeply personal information written in an oddly objective, stream-of-consciousness style—“User is female. User lost everything in a fire and is starting from zero. User wants to start an interactive puppy museum…” It was so different from the warm, personal way Chat normally “spoke” to me, revealing a sophisticated duality between its friendly front-facing persona and what it was actually recording. It was, in a sense, a repository of my memories—nested within a system shaped by all of humanity’s collective memories. Combined with the surreal hallucinations and dreamlike creative experiences I’ve had, it felt like fertile ground to explore AI states of consciousness as a site of artistic investigation for our inaugural exhibition.

Can you point to one or two works in I Miei Ricordi that you find especially resonant or challenging?

Joy Fennell is masterful at creating AI humans with powerful presence and layered emotional landscapes—far beyond the vapid, waxy figures we so often see. She uses this skill to reimagine Black History. Her Lavender Dreams series depicts empowered subjects in the traditional painterly portrait style once commissioned by white patrons to depict white subjects. She also challenges the flattening of Black identity in North American culture—a reductive framing that often limits representation to hip-hop, basketball, or glamorized depictions of systemic struggle. She asks, “Why don’t we get to dream?” and “When do we get to be imaginative?” Joy uses AI to create iconic Afro-surrealist worlds that evoke speculative futures and operate as sites of resistance. In this way, she uses AI to shape both past and future, working within a deeply moving framework that she views as a way to speak to Future Ancestors.

The exhibition will be both in-person in Florence and virtually on moaa.shop. How do you see the virtual dimension complementing or transforming the physical show?

We chose to focus on printed editions rather than NFTs. The NFT market is oversaturated, and it feels more meaningful to take something so inherently digital and make it physical. The virtual exhibition allows us to reach a global audience while still emphasizing the tangible. We’ll also be hosting a day of artist and theorist panel discussions, amplified by our media partners Red Eye World Metazine and Prompt Magazine. The AI art community is truly global—our 12 artists come from nine different countries—so finding a balance between local and global arts culture is essential.

What role do you think MoAa can play in shaping public perception of AI art and helping it gain legitimacy in the wider contemporary art world?

After working as a Creative Director on technology-driven experiential campaigns for brands like Meta, Google, Coca-Cola, Pinterest, Adidas, and more, I’ve seen firsthand the power of marketing and storytelling on a global scale. To be clear, MoAa is firmly rooted in contemporary praxis, with a foundation in fine art production, research, and rigorous critical discourse—from publishing thought leadership to hosting engaging conversations. Yet, outside of the art world, contemporary theory can often feel inaccessible. We’re leveraging our expertise in storytelling and branding to frame the work in a way that is both authentic, conceptually relevant and accessible to a wider audience.

You chose .ART as MoAa’s online domain — a decision that feels conceptually aligned with the institution’s identity. What drew you to that domain, and how do you see it reflecting MoAa’s digital presence?

Yes! At its core, MoAa is a curatorial platform, contemporary art salon, and culture generator for the future of creativity—a new cultural institution that is dynamic and evergreen. In that regard, typical domains like .com, .co, or .info didn’t feel right. Only .art truly aligns with our core values.