Ghosts in the Machine at the New Museum, New York

This exhibition examined the evolving reciprocity between humans, machines and art. Occupying the museum’s three main galleries, Ghosts in the Machine traced over fifty years of artistic engagement with technology—from the mechanical to the optical to the virtual. Curated by Massimiliano Gioni and Gary Carrion-Murayari, it featured a diverse array of contemporary and historical works that explore the anthropomorphic qualities projected onto machines. The show included kinetic artworks, experimental films and significant historical installations like Stan VanDerBeek’s Movie-Drome, exploring how technology reshapes sensory experience and societal roles. The show, like much of generative art, aimed to reconcile the human with the mechanical, updating classic machine-based exhibitions like MoMA’s Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age. This show featured the work of Bridget Riley, Victor Vasarely and Hans Haacke, three critical mainstream art world figures in the development of generative art.