Antonio Somaini: “Latent Spaces: Generative AI, Art, and the Transformations of the Archive”
Latent Spaces: Generative AI, Art, and the Transformations of the Archive
In his talk, Antonio Somaini articulated the need for a contemporary theory of images and visual culture to account for so-called latent spaces as a central cultural infrastructure of AI. Both mathematical, abstract concept and the technical infrastructure of moden machine-learning models, latent spaces are the compressed representation of cultural data. Drawing on his work as art curator, Somaini argued that, although invisible, latent spaces play a decisive role in shaping what can be seen, known, imagined, and remembered, with far-reaching epistemological, cultural, and political implications. Focusing on generative AI, his presentation examined how latent spaces mediate the past and cultural memory by processing and transforming vast quantities of visual and textual material, proposing latent spaces should be understood as “meta-archives”: not repositories for storage and retrieval, but structures designed for interpolation and transformation.
Antonio Somaini is Full Professor of Film, Media and Visual Culture Theory at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris and a Senior Member of the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF). In 2025, he was Visiting Professor at Harvard, in the department of Art, Film and Visual Studies. His recent research deals with the impact of AI on images, visual cultures and artistic practices in the fields of photography, film and video installations. He is the chief curator of the exhibition Le monde selon l’IA / The World Through AI which has been presented at the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris between April and September 2025, and will now travel to museums in Brazil and Germany between late 2025 and 2026. Among his latest publications, the article “Algorithmic Images: Artificial Intelligence and Visual Culture” (Grey Room, 93, Fall 2023) and the text “A Theory of Latent Spaces” (The World Through AI, Paris: JBE Books / Jeu de Paume, 2025). He is currently preparing a book on latent spaces and a new exhibition on AI and contemporary art at the MAAT (Musem of Art, Architecture and Technology) in Lisbon.