The IN&OUT of the BOX project is based on the idea that cultural activity sits at the intersection of three fundamental elements of value creation in contemporary societies: intelligence, creativity, and technology. Yet these three factors also constitute major “black boxes” of human culture. The IN&OUT of the BOX project seeks to challenge this opacity and critically explore trends of transformation shaping the cultural and creative sectors, with particular attention to the current transformative stage of Artificial Intelligence technologies. It aims to understand how AI is reshaping skills, agency, and value creation, while challenging our notions of intelligence, creativity, and authorship.

In the face of the increasing datafication and automation of the aesthetic, how might creative skills be reimagined for the contemporary world? From its inception, the artistic research strand of the IN&OUT of the BOX project has sought to explore possible answers to this question. To this end, we invited five Portuguese artists to create works that engage, through a wide range of artistic languages and modes of expression, with this new stage in the industrialisation of culture and creativity.

Curator: Nuno Crespo (Director of the School of Arts at the Catholic University of Portugal and art critic for PÚBLICO)