Group update

This summer, Prosus partnered with Nxt Museum to launch an artist AI residency exploring the cultural, emotional and societal implications of intent-driven AI. The three-month programme, which culminates in a final public showcase on 13 and 14 September, brought together four artists/studios working across disciplines to investigate how artificial intelligence is shifting from reactive to anticipatory modes of interaction, and what it means for human experience.

Based at Nxt Museum in Amsterdam Noord and connected to Prosus's AI House Amsterdam, the residency provided artists an opportunity to develop technical skills, explore new AI tools, and conduct data-driven research. Data scientists from Prosus provided access to real-world technology, datasets, and AI expertise, while Nxt Museum offered interdisciplinary mentorship from leading voices in art, technology, and academia.

“We partnered with Nxt Museum because leading in avant-garde technologies like AI requires building more than products – it requires a mass movement,” said Euro Beinat, Global Head of AI and Data Science at Prosus. “The residency is part of our commitment to growing a strong AI community in Amsterdam, and connecting technologists, artists, and innovators who are addressing similar questions from different angles.”

What is intent-driven AI?

Throughout the residency, artists were encouraged to explore the impact of intent-driven AI on individuals and society. Intent-driven AI refers to systems designed to interpret what users mean, rather than simply responding to their actions. Instead of reacting to inputs or instructions, these models attempt to understand a person's goals, preferences or future behaviour, based on patterns in past activity.

Final Showcase

On September 13 and 14, the four artists – Farzaneh Nouri, Baast Studio, UNI_VERSE Team with Isabelle Udo and Sem Verbraak, and Feileacan Kirkbride McCormick – will present their final artworks and reflections from across the programme, in a public showcase at Nxt Museum.

Reflecting on the residency, the team from UNI_VERSE, a hybrid digital creation studio said, “We’ve explored the many ways AI touches creativity, from questions of intimacy to ownership, and it has been eye-opening. What resonated most was the chance to imagine, through our mentors and the installations: a future shaped by AI that isn’t dystopian, but deeply human.”

Farzaneh Nouri, a sound-based artist whose work explores embodied knowledge in machine learning, described the experience as “A remarkable opportunity to delve into various aspects of AI in creative processes through sharing and exchanging insights with a brilliant community of thinkers and creators. The enriching experience fostered extensive learning and broadened my understanding across diverse viewpoints in the field.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​”

Baast Studio operates at the intersection of technology, design, and experimentation. Roel Kok, Founder and Technical Director of the studio, said, "Assessing our relationship with AI as artists is now more relevant than ever. The residency and the workshops that were part of it really ignited our inspiration and helped us forward as creatives."

Feileacan Kirkbride McCormick, whose work spans installation and video art, said "The residency offered space for contemplating intent in the context of the technologies that are actively marketed as the ‘future present’, and in doing so, underlined the need for alternative lines of questioning: to explore smaller, more obscure branches of technology that might offer us something the more mainstream approaches cannot."

Join us at Nxt Museum on September 13 and 14 for the final showcase. For more information, visit https://nxtmuseum.com/nxt-x-prosus-ai-residency.

About Nxt Museum

Nxt is an experimental art space in Amsterdam dedicated to immersive experiences at the intersection of art, science, and technology. It commissions and presents ground-breaking museum installations by pioneering living artists.

Over the last four years, Nxt has built a portfolio of large-scale exhibitions featuring a new wave of new media artists and developed extensive public programmes focused on music, movement, performance and education. Nxt has emerged as an aspirational global brand in the art world. With a mission to change our tech-driven world for the better, at Nxt we seek, show, and question how tech impacts humanity through art.