Cooper Jacoby's Whitney Biennial sculptures critique AI data extraction

At the 2026 Whitney Biennial, artist Cooper Jacoby presents five works in a green-carpeted environment he describes as 'almost like a rat trap.' The installation includes the 2026 piece 'Estate (July 10, 2022),' a folding screen with an intercom that vocalizes edited social media posts from a deceased anonymous creative, using AI models trained on years of their content. A camera scans for people and objects to trigger related material, while a screen counts time since death. Jacoby selects subjects solely for large datasets, paralleling how OpenAI and competitors treat user data as 'fertiliser' for AI models. Another series, 'Mutual Life,' features three sculptures resembling eyes with stainless steel pupils and wax retinas, with clock hands that spin at rates based on biological age—a metric Jacoby encountered when his health insurer offered lower premiums for taking a test. He questions the lack of regulation around digital life and death, and the 'monstrous' and 'mildly eugenic' implications of approximating mortality. The biennial runs until August 23 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.