ZKM's 'Silver Egg' Exhibition Explores Sensory Media Art with AI Perfumery and Coral Restoration

The Zentrum für Kunst und Medien (ZKM) in Karlsruhe presents 'Silver Egg', a group exhibition curated by Anett Holzheid that interrogates the sensuality of media art through approximately 50 works. A centerpiece is Frederik Duerinck's 'Algorithmic Perfumery', developed with perfumer Anahita Mekanik and tech startup ScenTronix. Visitors can converse with a chatbot about scent memories and emotions, after which an AI generates a personalized perfume recipe that is mixed and bottled on-site for €15. The system can produce up to 500 million unique scent combinations. The exhibition also features Marco Barotti's 'Coral Sonic Resilience', an underwater sound sculpture made from reef-friendly ceramic and calcium carbonate via 3D printing, designed to aid coral reef regeneration through specific sound patterns. Other works include Yunchul Kim's kinetic 'Mercurial 2', robotlab's industrial robot spinning thread models, and Weidi Zhang and Rodger Luo's 'ReCollection', which uses AI to generate black-and-white images from visitors' memories. Video works by Charmaine Poh, Derek Jarman, and Pipilotti Rist are also on view. ZKM director Alistair Hudson envisions the institution as a 'useful museum' serving a social purpose beyond art display. The exhibition runs at the ZKM in Karlsruhe.