{"id":668633,"date":"2026-09-02T11:29:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T11:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/668633\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T11:29:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T11:29:17","slug":"madison-museum-plans-ai-generated-sculpture-to-artists-dismay-arts-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/668633\/","title":{"rendered":"Madison museum plans AI-generated sculpture, to artists\u2019 dismay | Arts & Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cap Times is an independent newsroom serving Madison and Wisconsin. Sign up for the Food & Culture newsletter<\/a> for exclusive weekly insight.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, about 100 people had signed an open letter to MMoCA<\/a> protesting the use of artificial intelligence in \u201cDiffuse Control,\u201d a kinetic sculpture created by the digital artist Beeple. By Tuesday afternoon, the letter had 700 signatures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDiffuse Control\u201d draws on each museum\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"DIFFUSE-CONTROL-2.png\"<\/p>\n

“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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

COURTESY OF BEEPLE STUDIOS<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Broad Art Museum. This is Beeple\u2019s first exhibition in Wisconsin, though the artist was born in the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited that I\u2019m able to bring something that was shown in Los Angeles to a community of half a million people,\u201d said Paul Baker Prindle, MMoCA\u2019s director. \u201cThe 2 million people that follow him on Instagram<\/a> alone suggest that he (Beeple) is doing something in the public interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile there are people who disagree with the technologies he\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u201cDiffuse Control\u201d and generative models used to create the sculpture as a form of artistic theft.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a lot of friends who are artists, and everyone had similar feelings, like \u2014 why are they deciding to do this?\u201d Peterson said of MMoCA\u2019s exhibition. \u201cTo me, it\u2019s the fact that these artists died and can\u2019t vouch for how their work is used. I wanted to put that in a clear way to MMoCA.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DIFFUSE-CONTROL-3.png\"<\/p>\n

“Diffuse Control” by the digital artist Beeple will be on display through January at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.\u00a0<\/p>\n

COURTESY OF BEEPLE STUDIOS<\/p>\n

Commenters who signed the letter expressed dismay over AI in the museum at all, given its extractive nature. Signatories called the upcoming exhibition \u201ctone deaf,\u201d \u201cembarrassing\u201d and \u201cextremely disrespectful to the artists.\u201d Many referenced the environmental costs of AI. Some called the piece \u201cAI slop,\u201d and the word \u201ccannibalization\u201d came up several times. Nearly four dozen respondents said they were disappointed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI is taking away commercial opportunities left and right,\u201d one signer wrote. \u201cBy allowing this work the same platform, MMoCA is further diminishing the value that society places on artists\u2019 work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peterson hasn\u2019t sent his letter to the museum, but Baker Prindle has seen it. He didn\u2019t want to comment on the letter directly except to say it gets \u201calmost everything wrong\u201d noting that commenters haven\u2019t seen the piece itself. The museum added a Frequently Asked Questions section<\/a> to its website on Tuesday afternoon, with details about environmental and ethical implications of the technology involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Peterson wants a version of \u201cDiffuse Control\u201d that employs the work of living artists only, who have given their direct consent to such a use. Failing that, he\u2019d like to see the museum make a clear anti-AI policy going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a fan of MMoCA, that\u2019s why I wrote the letter,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m really trying to say, \u2018This is what I recommend.\u2019 I\u2019m not expecting MMoCA to pull the show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who is Beeple?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

As a digital artist, Beeple became known via Instagram for \u201cdailies,\u201d 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2021, Beeple became an unexpected superstar of the NFT (non-fungible token) boom. \u201cEverydays: The First 5,000 Days\u201d sold for $69.3 million at Christie\u2019s \u2014 at the time, the third-most expensive piece of art ever sold by a living artist.<\/p>\n

At first, Winkelmann balked at even calling himself an artist. He found the term elitist, and he didn\u2019t have his first gallery show until 2022.<\/p>\n

Beeple\u2019s more recent work includes the deeply creepy exhibition, \u201cRegular Animals<\/a>,\u201d 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, \u201cpooping\u201d images of what they see using onboard cameras.<\/p>\n

\"DIFFUSE-CONTROL-1.jpg\"<\/p>\n

“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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

COURTESY OF BEEPLE STUDIOS<\/p>\n

In recent years, Beeple has started working more with AI. On an episode of\u00a0The Crypto.news podcast<\/a> last year, Winkelmann said he finds the critique of AI as cultural theft to be \u201cridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that people have, that it is not making anything new, is not true,\u201d he said. \u201cI think you can definitely make new things with AI. People who are like, \u2018It\u2019s just remixing ideas that have already happened\u2019 \u2026 what do you think humans are doing? Give me a break.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven the best people who we would call visionaries, who have pushed forward their crafts \u2026 all borrow and remix ideas from people who came before.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is \u2018Diffuse Control\u2019?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The stacked cubes of \u201cDiffuse Control\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

In a 2025 video about \u201cDiffuse Control<\/a>,\u201d Beeple said he wanted to \u201cmake a work that utilized AI to its full potential,\u201d in order to create \u201can analogy (for) how we will use AI in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

a new work from Beeple Studios<\/p>\n

for more info visit: https:\/\/diffusecontrol.ai<\/a><\/p>\n

part of the Kanbas Collection (https:\/\/kanbas.art<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe work will continue to grow and have more and more iterations over time,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are aspects of it that I won\u2019t have control over. The curators will choose images I never would have thought of. That\u2019s really exciting, and different than other AI works where the artist is really curating the outputs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each new version of \u201cDiffuse Control\u201d 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\u2019ve \u201ccreated\u201d and purchase it.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, that\u2019s really an analogy for how things are going to be in the future,\u201d Beeple said in the video. \u201cEverybody\u2019s going to be creating digital art through this insanely powerful new tool that is going to be super fast and seamless. Everybody\u2019s going to need to be their own curator.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Baker Prindle, the museum\u2019s director, went to Beeple Studios he was \u201cconfused and excited\u201d by the artist\u2019s work. His own response made him want to show it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am sort of a tech luddite,\u201d Baker Prindle said. \u201cI 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?\u201d<\/p>\n

Baker Prindle likes that \u201cDiffuse Control\u201d involves \u201cmultiple sentient and non-sentient actors\u201d in its creation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very interested in things that don\u2019t resolve cleanly,\u201d he said. \u201cAs the director of a contemporary art museum, I think it\u2019s our remit to bring work to the attention of our audiences that requires discussion. \u2026 Dialogue about an artwork is one of the characteristics that distinguishes art from something that isn\u2019t art.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Peterson allows that some nuance has been lost as people jump to criticize MMoCA. People see \u201cAI\u201d and \u201cmuseum\u201d and leap to \u201cbad,\u201d he said, which is generally fine with him \u2014 even if \u201cyou\u2019re just saying \u2018I don\u2019t like AI and I don\u2019t want to see it in the museum\u2019 \u2026 it\u2019s a fair position, and one I probably agree with.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, he said, \u201cthere are people commenting, \u2018I will never go back to MMoCA,\u2019 and it\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, no.\u2019 They\u2019ve done so many shows that I love. For this one thing to ruin their reputation for you, it\u2019s just so sad. I don\u2019t want it to be that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peterson said he used to be a fan of Beeple\u2019s work too, though he finds this installation derivative and his recent work \u201clow effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s possible to do interesting things with generative work, and that could include AI,\u201d Peterson said. \u201cI don\u2019t find that this installation is particularly saying anything new to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u00a0created a new college focused on AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are planning broader conversations about \u2018What even is AI?\u2019 because a lot of people don\u2019t really know what it is, and how much they\u2019re already using it,\u201d Baker Prindle said.<\/p>\n

In a later email about the show, he said the museum has \u201cheard 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the conversation has also gotten ahead of the facts, which is perhaps inevitable when people are debating an exhibition that hasn\u2019t opened yet,\u201d he added. \u201c\u2018Diffuse Control\u2019 is a particular artwork with a particular structure, and I think experiencing it matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those who want to come to the opening on Sept. 19 should register soon, as it\u2019s close to capacity \u2014 280 people as of Sept. 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have so many people registered to come to the opening that I\u2019m actually not sure how I\u2019m going to fit everyone in the building,\u201d Baker Prindle said. \u201cFor as many people who are upset about it, there are people that want to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n