And we thought at the MAXXI Museum in Rome

Within the exhibition dedicated to the MAXXI BVLGARI PRIZE 2024, set up in the Gian Ferrari room of the MAXXI – National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome, curated by Giulia Ferracci, the project And we thought by artist Roberto Fassone is on display. The project, produced by Sineglossa with producer Giacomo Raffaelli, is the winner of the MAXXI BVLGARI PRIZE FOR DIGITAL ART.

And we thought explores the concept of authorship: can an artificial intelligence generate art through powerful and poetic visions, or is it the human being who is the author, having designed the artificial intelligence? Or again, is it a collective process, where the artist is merely a medium?

Born in 2021 as part of the FOOD DATA DIGESTION project, funded by the Art Waves grant from the Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo and conducted by Sineglossa in collaboration with Play with food, the project developed in subsequent years through texts, videos, posters, and other visual productions. It has been exhibited at ART CITY Bologna 2023, the Ars Electronica Festival 2022, and the University of Luxembourg as part of Nuit de La Culture 2024.

And we thought stems from the collaboration between artist Roberto Fassone and Ai Lai, an artificial intelligence trained on an archive of thousands of “trip reports” (accounts of psychedelic experiences) collected from online platforms like Shroomery.org, providing a unique dataset on altered states of consciousness. Through its “hallucinated vision,” Ai Lai conceived the existence of three films, attributed to an alternative version of the Led Zeppelin—not the famous rock band, but their projection into an ultra-digital universe—titled The Doors, The Rood, and Love is Magic.