Three framed works on the wall of the Solidarity Burundi Pavilion, guest room of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Pavilion. Palazzo Malipiero, Venice.
Textile: embroidery, laser-cutting · 2025
A phyllotaxis design generated by Gemini 2.5 Pro as autoportrait, embroidered on khaki fabric by an intelligent machine, squarely centered in reflexive cloth, mounted in bamboo wood. The transparent A4 label on the back of the frame reads:
GEMINI’S HANDHELD AUTOPORTRAIT — THIS IS NOT A GOOGLE TABLET.
Open Design Lab — Textile edition, Made in Kortrijk · Instagram
Print: photo paper, A3 · Web: code, text, voice
Digital text and blockchain token, 2024. Online page, 2025. Web app and printed bulletin, 2026. The QR encodes the AI-voiced Catholic mass ceremony — Latin missa, Kirundi imisa.
Digital, blockchain: 2023 · Paper, print: 2026
Black-and-white print, 300 × 300 mm, in-between a mat black fabric. The wall-mounted loupe is for inspecting the three dots, arranged like the stars on Burundi’s flag.
Legal. The bulletin stages a prescient U.S. immigration agent surveilling a protesting Christian church. Timestamped before the Catholic Pope became American, before the USA Presidency became religious.
Technological. The textile renders an AI’s self-portrait in thread. Slow craft hours and machine cycles meet on a single panel. A portrait the model could not produce of itself without a loom.
Cosmic. The photograph was taken on foot, around Mont the Arts, when exiled in Brussels. An alien craft in the night sky visible only by zooming. Astronomical time framed in pedestrian time.
The guest's speech played alongside the host’s opening speech of the pavilion.
Palazzo Malipiero · May 9 – November 22, 2026 · Tue–Sun, 11:00–19:00 (until Sep 30) / 10:00–18:00 (from Oct 1) · Free entrance.
Date of last modification: see commit history on GitHub.