Valentin Gillet's 'Sense of Agency' Exposes Digital Image Infrastructure

Valentin Gillet's solo exhibition 'Sense of Agency,' curated by Elisabetta Pagella and produced by Elena Castiglia, runs from May 21 to 25, 2026, in Milan. The show transforms a gallery into a collapsed film set using LED lights, green screens, 3D scanners, and prosthetic body parts. Gillet, born in Poissy in 1994 and based in Paris, worked for a decade as a self-taught 3D artist in special effects before graduating from the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2024. His film 'Dream House' turns virtual production backstage—cranes, motion capture, LED screens—into the artwork itself, exposing simulation rather than hiding it. The installation features hyperreal yet unsettling digital reconstructions of eyes and mouths, presented as perceptual devices rather than faces. The work references Vilém Flusser's concept of 'structural thinking,' arguing that digital tools actively redefine reality. Gillet's approach marks a shift from celebrating AI and generative tools to using synthetic images as critical philosophical and political terrain.