Art between memory and artificial intelligence: in Genoa, Paolo Bufalini's Argo project

From Nov. 9 to Dec. 5, 2024, the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa hosts Argo, a project by Paolo Bufalini (Rome, 1994) that pushes the boundaries between biography, technology and creativity. The artist uses generative artificial intelligence tools to digitally rework his family albums, covering decades of visual memory, from the 1950s to the early 2000s. The result is an “augmented past,” a series of images that evoke reality but belong to a hypothetical universe, suspended between what was and what could have been.

Bufalini creates digitized datasets from family albums, employing them to train text-to-image models. These algorithms produce images that reconstruct the faces and moments of an imaginary past, transforming the personal archive into a laboratory for exploring time and memory.

The resulting synographies depict subjects posing as sleepers, evoking the ambiguity of sleep as a metaphor: a condition of presence and absence that reflects the dreamlike nature of the artificial intelligence-generated images. The project thus becomes a poetic reflection on the potential of archives to reveal new parallel worlds, redefining the linear perception of time.

Between technology and matter

In addition to the images, Argo includes a sculptural work that further explores the idea of latency and transformation. Ampoules containing an acid solution dissolve second-hand gold jewelry: the gold is present but invisible, ready to be recovered. This chemical process symbolizes latent generative potential, parallel to the role of latent space in artificial intelligence models.

From Dec. 12 to 15, 2024, Argo will be hosted by the Home Movies Foundation - National Family Film Archive in Bologna as part of The Next Real | Art, AI & Artificial Intelligence, an event exploring the interactions between art and technology.

Bufalini, personalizing technology with biographical materials, offers a powerful and original reflection on the relationship between personal memory, narrative and the new possibilities opened by artificial intelligence. A journey through time, but also through the technological unconscious, which transforms the private archive into a laboratory of poetic innovation.

Notes on the artist

Paolo Bufalini (Rome, 1994) is a visual artist based in Bologna. His research is characterized by cross-media and marked formal heterogeneity, and finds in the investigation of the relationships between psychic, temporal and material depths its primary motif. His work has been exhibited in institutional and independent spaces in Italy and abroad, including: Biennale di Gubbio, c/o Palazzo Ducale, Gubbio; Museo di Palazzo Collicola, Spoleto; Marktstudio, Bologna; La Rada, Locarno; Gelateria Sogni di Ghiaccio, Bologna; Eataly Art House, Verona; Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Umbertide (PG); Dolomiti Contemporanee, c/o Castello di Andraz (BL); Fabbri-Schenker projects, London; Localedue, Bologna; MASSIMO, Milan; Raum, Bologna; Neverneverland, Amsterdam. Recent awards and residencies include: SIAE - Per Chi Crea (2023); Carapelli for Art (2022); Purchase Award Emilia-Romagna Region (2020); Nuovo Forno del Pane (residency), c/o MamBo, Bologna (2020).

Sineglossa is a cultural organization, with offices in Ancona and Bologna, that promotes the emergence of new models of sustainable development by applying the processes of contemporary art. Through the contamination between humanistic and scientific disciplines, we search for beautiful, sustainable and inclusive solutions. They create hybrid ecosystems involving artists, scientists, entrepreneurs and humanists - but also universities, public administrations and local communities. They believe in the fundamental social role of culture, and we are committed to promoting culturally-based innovation. They are an official partner of the New European Bauhaus and we curate Mangrovia, a news outlet that tells other stories about cultures, technology and society.

The exhibition is curated and produced by Sineglossa, produced with the support of SIAE and the Ministry of Culture, as part of the Per Chi Crea program, in collaboration with the Department of Chemistry at the University of Turin and Palazzo Ducale Fondazione per la Cultura.

For all information, you can visit the official website of Palazzo Ducale.

Art between memory and artificial intelligence: in Genoa, Paolo Bufalini's Argo project

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