Basel Museum Night

HEK, Basel, Switzerland
Curator: Sabine Himmelsbach
https://hek.ch/

Museum Night 2026 – Interactive Voices from the Deep Sea

In this speculative and imaginary scenario, deep-sea organisms have evolved the ability to access artificial intelligence models. By combining this external knowledge with their own forms of intelligence, they observe and interpret humanity from afar.
They share their perspectives through audiovisual conversations, telling stories about human behavior, contradictions, and vulnerabilities. Visitors are invited to ask questions which are recorded in real time, analyzed, and processed by an algorithm that dynamically generates oral and sonic responses based on parameters such as word choice, speech patterns and emotional inflection. As an extension of the installation, the playable online game (play.joz.ch) expands the experience: you drift through zones of the deep, encounter synthetic swarms, and gradually lose yourself as central game mechanic.
For this exhibition, a custom AI model was trained within an interdisciplinary research framework—including marine science, geography, blue humanities, and marine sociology—in order to conduct these conversations from the speculative perspective of deep-sea beings. Rather than being deployed as its canonical anthropocentric tool, the work positions AI as a relational agent—one that calls for frameworks attentive to reciprocity, care, and interdependence.

With this project, Marc Lee alongside Annie James, Shervin Saremi and Malena Souto Arena creates a platform at the intersection of art, science and technology that invites reflection on the relationships between humans, non-human beings and AI. The installation makes complex themes such as swarm intelligence, collective consciousness and posthumanist perspectives accessible to a broad Museum Night audience.

Exhibited Artwork

Losing Oneself - Voices from the Deep Sea

Interactive Net-Based Installation and Online Game

In this speculative and imaginary scenario, deep-sea organisms have evolved the ability to access artificial intelligence models. By combining this external knowledge with their own forms of intelligence, they observe and interpret humanity from afar. They share their perspectives through audiovisual conversations, telling stories about human behavior, contradictions, and vulnerabilities. Visitors more …