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A new interactive, AI-generated digital sculpture is on its way to the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. But before it even opens, hundreds of locals want it shut down.
Over the weekend, about 100 people had signed an open letter to MMoCA protesting the use of artificial intelligence in “Diffuse Control,” a kinetic sculpture created by the digital artist Beeple. By Tuesday afternoon, the letter had 700 signatures.
“Diffuse Control” draws on each museum’s collection of art for its source material. At MMoCA, 18 works selected by curators will feed 12 large, stacked video screens, which viewers can manipulate using their phones.
“Diffuse Control” by Beeple gets its name from who and what contributes to its creation: a computer program, an artist, curators at the institution where it is displayed and the viewers themselves.
COURTESY OF BEEPLE STUDIOS
The piece, set to be on view in Madison from Sept. 19 through Jan. 10, 2027, was recently on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), NODE Foundation in San Francisco and The Shed in New York City. After Madison, it is set to travel to Michigan State University’s Broad Art Museum. This is Beeple’s first exhibition in Wisconsin, though the artist was born in the state.
“I’m excited that I’m able to bring something that was shown in Los Angeles to a community of half a million people,” said Paul Baker Prindle, MMoCA’s director. “The 2 million people that follow him on Instagram alone suggest that he (Beeple) is doing something in the public interest.
“While there are people who disagree with the technologies he’s using, that conversation is actually much bigger. This object is a nice entry point if we allow ourselves to engage in civil discourse around it.”
Noah Peterson, an east sider who paints, organizes art shows and is a member of MMoCA, said he wrote the letter because he felt angry. He views the use of existing art in “Diffuse Control” and generative models used to create the sculpture as a form of artistic theft.
“I have a lot of friends who are artists, and everyone had similar feelings, like — why are they deciding to do this?” Peterson said of MMoCA’s exhibition. “To me, it’s the fact that these artists died and can’t vouch for how their work is used. I wanted to put that in a clear way to MMoCA.”
“Diffuse Control” by the digital artist Beeple will be on display through January at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.
COURTESY OF BEEPLE STUDIOS
Commenters who signed the letter expressed dismay over AI in the museum at all, given its extractive nature. Signatories called the upcoming exhibition “tone deaf,” “embarrassing” and “extremely disrespectful to the artists.” Many referenced the environmental costs of AI. Some called the piece “AI slop,” and the word “cannibalization” came up several times. Nearly four dozen respondents said they were disappointed.
“AI is taking away commercial opportunities left and right,” one signer wrote. “By allowing this work the same platform, MMoCA is further diminishing the value that society places on artists’ work.”
Peterson hasn’t sent his letter to the museum, but Baker Prindle has seen it. He didn’t want to comment on the letter directly except to say it gets “almost everything wrong” noting that commenters haven’t seen the piece itself. The museum added a Frequently Asked Questions section to its website on Tuesday afternoon, with details about environmental and ethical implications of the technology involved.
Baker Prindle also noted that MMoCA is breaking no laws, and has explicit permission from estates and the single living artist whose work is involved. In some cases, the museum owns the copyright for a work. In others, the artwork is in the public domain.
Peterson wants a version of “Diffuse Control” that employs the work of living artists only, who have given their direct consent to such a use. Failing that, he’d like to see the museum make a clear anti-AI policy going forward.
“I’m a fan of MMoCA, that’s why I wrote the letter,” he said. “I’m really trying to say, ‘This is what I recommend.’ I’m not expecting MMoCA to pull the show.”
Who is Beeple?
Beeple (named for a yeti-looking plush toy from the 1980s) is the name chosen by Mike Winkelmann. He was born in Fond du Lac and has based his studio in Charleston, South Carolina.
As a digital artist, Beeple became known via Instagram for “dailies,” original conceptual art he made every day for a decade. He has worked as a graphic designer for Louis Vuitton, Nike and Ariana Grande, among many others.
In 2021, Beeple became an unexpected superstar of the NFT (non-fungible token) boom. “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days” sold for $69.3 million at Christie’s — at the time, the third-most expensive piece of art ever sold by a living artist.
At first, Winkelmann balked at even calling himself an artist. He found the term elitist, and he didn’t have his first gallery show until 2022.
Beeple’s more recent work includes the deeply creepy exhibition, “Regular Animals,” shown at Art Basel Miami in 2025. In that piece, little robot dogs with lifelike silicone heads of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Andy Warhol, Jeff Bezos and Beeple himself hobble around, “pooping” images of what they see using onboard cameras.
“Diffuse Control” by Beeple draws from the collection of the museum it is installed in. Recently, that meant the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and The Shed, in New York City.
COURTESY OF BEEPLE STUDIOS
In recent years, Beeple has started working more with AI. On an episode of The Crypto.news podcast last year, Winkelmann said he finds the critique of AI as cultural theft to be “ridiculous.”
“The idea that people have, that it is not making anything new, is not true,” he said. “I think you can definitely make new things with AI. People who are like, ‘It’s just remixing ideas that have already happened’ … what do you think humans are doing? Give me a break.
“Even the best people who we would call visionaries, who have pushed forward their crafts … all borrow and remix ideas from people who came before.”
What is ‘Diffuse Control’?
The stacked cubes of “Diffuse Control” were designed to be a collaboration between Beeple, the curators who choose the artwork to feed into it and the audience who can manipulate the piece. In renderings, the effect looks like boldly colorful bubbles, angular graphics and distorted human figures.
In a 2025 video about “Diffuse Control,” Beeple said he wanted to “make a work that utilized AI to its full potential,” in order to create “an analogy (for) how we will use AI in the future.”
a new work from Beeple Studios
for more info visit: https://diffusecontrol.ai
part of the Kanbas Collection (https://kanbas.art)
“The work will continue to grow and have more and more iterations over time,” he said. “There are aspects of it that I won’t have control over. The curators will choose images I never would have thought of. That’s really exciting, and different than other AI works where the artist is really curating the outputs.”
Each new version of “Diffuse Control” creates a new version of the artwork. Viewers can interact with it and save an impression of a moment in time, then produce a print of the image they’ve “created” and purchase it.
“To me, that’s really an analogy for how things are going to be in the future,” Beeple said in the video. “Everybody’s going to be creating digital art through this insanely powerful new tool that is going to be super fast and seamless. Everybody’s going to need to be their own curator.”
When Baker Prindle, the museum’s director, went to Beeple Studios he was “confused and excited” by the artist’s work. His own response made him want to show it.
“I am sort of a tech luddite,” Baker Prindle said. “I am interested in theories of what makes us human. What is creativity? How do we share work, and what do we do with the artwork that we see? How do we interact with it?”
Baker Prindle likes that “Diffuse Control” involves “multiple sentient and non-sentient actors” in its creation.
“I’m very interested in things that don’t resolve cleanly,” he said. “As the director of a contemporary art museum, I think it’s our remit to bring work to the attention of our audiences that requires discussion. … Dialogue about an artwork is one of the characteristics that distinguishes art from something that isn’t art.”
What’s next?
Peterson allows that some nuance has been lost as people jump to criticize MMoCA. People see “AI” and “museum” and leap to “bad,” he said, which is generally fine with him — even if “you’re just saying ‘I don’t like AI and I don’t want to see it in the museum’ … it’s a fair position, and one I probably agree with.”
Still, he said, “there are people commenting, ‘I will never go back to MMoCA,’ and it’s like, ‘Oh, no.’ They’ve done so many shows that I love. For this one thing to ruin their reputation for you, it’s just so sad. I don’t want it to be that.”
Peterson said he used to be a fan of Beeple’s work too, though he finds this installation derivative and his recent work “low effort.”
“I think it’s possible to do interesting things with generative work, and that could include AI,” Peterson said. “I don’t find that this installation is particularly saying anything new to me.”
Baker Prindle said that, though Winkelmann will not be giving a talk during his visit to Madison, the museum is planning public conversations around the work. MMoCA may bring in scholars from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which recently created a new college focused on AI.
“We are planning broader conversations about ‘What even is AI?’ because a lot of people don’t really know what it is, and how much they’re already using it,” Baker Prindle said.
In a later email about the show, he said the museum has “heard a broad range of responses, from concerns about generative AI, artistic labor, consent, copyright and environmental impact to real curiosity and excitement about seeing the work.
“Some of the conversation has also gotten ahead of the facts, which is perhaps inevitable when people are debating an exhibition that hasn’t opened yet,” he added. “‘Diffuse Control’ is a particular artwork with a particular structure, and I think experiencing it matters.”
Those who want to come to the opening on Sept. 19 should register soon, as it’s close to capacity — 280 people as of Sept. 1.
“We have so many people registered to come to the opening that I’m actually not sure how I’m going to fit everyone in the building,” Baker Prindle said. “For as many people who are upset about it, there are people that want to see it.”