INSTALLATION VIEWS
SYNOPSIS
More than half a century after the publication of Lawrence Weiner’s Statements (1968), Prompts (2025) translates those open-ended linguistic gestures into predictable AI images. What remains is the echo of today’s dominant modes of image production: Western, male, garish. The imagined possibilities once central to Weiner’s work yield to machine-formulated visuals; instead of subjective imagination, a visually programmed consensus emerges. Conceived as a typology, the series comprises 21 works; each work is a grid of 24 images (one per Weiner statement) generated by a single AI image model. Presented in a CAPTCHA-like array, the format inverts the »Are you human?« test, prompting viewers to parse machine output from human intent. Shown not as artistic intelligence but as a reflection of algorithmic normalization, the publication of these images is itself an ambivalent act—and meant as such.
PROMPTS
Derrived from Lawrence Weiner’s Statements (1968)
SYSTEMS
ESSAYS
Hwang, Tanja (2026): »Title T.B.A.« Curator at MoMA, New York [Text in preparation]
Seidl, Chiara (2026): »The Hand That No Longer Writes.« [German translation: »Die Hand, die nicht mehr schreibt.«] [Publication forthcoming.]
Gemini, Google (2025): »The Ghost in the Machine’s Mouth: Elias Wessel’s Prompts (2025) and the Unmasking of the Artificial Image (by Jerry Saltz?).« [German translation: »Der Geist im Maul der Maschine: Elias Wessels Prompts (2025) und die Entlarvung des künstlichen Bildes (von Jerry Saltz?).«] [Publication forthcoming.]
Related
Prompts, 2025 © Elias Wessel / Artists Rights Society (ARS). New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn