L’île artificielle

Aurélien Bambagioni is the guest artist at the Jeu de Paume’s online creative space in 2025.

In his latest film, French artist Aurélien Bambagioni enlists the help of an AI to create a film adaptation of Peter May’s novel L’île au Rébus. L’île artificielle (2023, film, 67′) reproduces the artist’s discussions with ChatGPT 3.5, which should have led to the realization of the film script.

The dialogue takes the form of subtitles that appear on the film, taken from the footage of the boat trip from Lorient to the island of Groix, the setting for Peter May’s novel. Even though the artist has to correct the AI on numerous occasions during exchanges with Chat GPT, the tone of the discussions is one of extreme courtesy and solicitude on the part of the AI, which shows no emotion in the face of the artist’s reproaches. Nevertheless, the final result is never satisfactory.

This film reveals, in a sometimes disturbing and humorous way, the limits of AI in the face of our expectations, in the knowledge that these same limits will probably be exceeded in the not-too-distant future.

Aurélien Bambagioni is also working on a new project involving artificial intelligence, to be produced and presented by the Jeu de Paume in summer 2025.

Born in 1975, Aurélien Bambagioni is an artist, video-maker and writer. A graduate of the École nationale supérieure d’art de Bourges, he took part in the first edition of Collège Invisible, a post-graduate program at the École supérieure d’art & de design Marseille Méditerranée in 2001. Since 2005, he has taught connected arts at the École supérieure d’art de Poitiers (ÉESI, Angoulême-Poitiers).

Based between Paris and the island of Groix in Brittany, Bambagioni explores the interactions between digital media, the dissemination of information and collective sharing. Interweaving his artistic approach with his playful, tourist and sporting experiences, he questions notions of landscape and displacement, against the backdrop of an omnipresent technological horizon.

Solicited as an exhibition curator, notably to establish links between video games and contemporary art, as in 2016 for “Eternel September” at the Rurart contemporary art center in Rouillé, He has taken part in numerous exhibitions, including “Hable con ella – Dialogue avec l’IA” at the Analix Forever gallery in Geneva in 2024, “L’archipel des sentinelles” at the Musée national de la Marine in Rochefort in 2021, “La vanité du monde” at the Palais de Tokyo in 2012 and “Nuit blanche 2006” at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. He has also collaborated with Le Bal on several occasions. In 2025, he was nominated for the Opline prize, the first prize for contemporary digital art. He is represented by Analix Forever Gallery in Geneva.