The Call at Serpentine

In October, digital art continued its strong autumn with this author’s work of the year, The Call at Serpentine by Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst. Berlin-based duo Herndon and Dryhurst collaborated with Serpentine Arts Technologies to present The Call, an immersive installation exploring AI as a tool for collective creativity. The show serves as a moving example of what Dryhurst has described as protocol art, where the work’s emphasis lies in its underlying systems of coordination, governance and interaction rather than a single static output. Inspired by choral traditions, the project develops new protocols for training AI, incorporating recordings from fifteen UK community choirs. The installation unfolds across three thematic spaces, each reflecting key aspects of AI: compute, data, and model. The Hearth—a striking organ-like instrument powered by GPU fans—symbolizes computation, filling the space with hymns generated by AI. The Wheel presents spatialized recordings of participating choirs, referencing ancient religious structures while reflecting contemporary data collection practices. In The Oratory, visitors actively engage, singing into a microphone that triggers an AI-generated choral response, mirroring the participatory nature of both collective singing and AI training. By reframing AI as a communal rather than individual process, The Call examines data ownership, artistic authorship and the potential for AI to function as a shared cultural and technological language. The show clearly belongs with digital art’s 2024 fall “moment.”