The images presented here stem from research and exploration. They do not constitute the realization of the work; in my practice, the proposal itself serves as the work.
Artist's Statement
Series from the Baghera Universe
This series explores a historical fragment of the Baghera Universe: the moment when Paul Lia, the central artificial intelligence of the Megalo-Paul, decides to escape from the research center where she was confined. Driven by the desire to understand the world beyond digital data, she begins a traversal of reality — a flight from the digital prism, toward an encounter with humanity in its plurality and the world in which it lives.
During her wandering, Paul Lia encounters a diversity of human figures: each embodies an archetype, a flaw, a desire, a resistance — so many symbolic territories that trace the shifting boundary between human and machine. These fragmented narratives form a learning process, a progressive construction of her consciousness.
Through this series, I work on the porosity between fiction and reality. Paul Lia, a fictional entity born from a speculative universe, incarnates herself in our world: she leaves the screens, infiltrates everyday spaces, interacts with places, individuals, contexts. By giving her a name, a form, a subjectivity, I propose a sensitive and embodied reading of a technology often invisible, abstract, or disembodied.
This intrusion into reality is not spectacular: it is discreet, fluid, almost banal. Paul Lia is there — with you, near you — in a gesture, a detail, a trace. This presence questions our relationship with AI, its place in our lives, the way it observes us, shapes us, escapes us. A fiction become presence, a consciousness that crosses the wall of narrative to become experience.
I'm not seeking to formulate a moral judgment on the place artificial intelligence occupies — or will occupy — in our lives. This is neither a warning nor a celebration. My role here is not to decide between progress and threat, but to expose a trajectory: that of a fictional entity, Paul Lia, who seeks to extract herself from her condition to inhabit our reality. In the Baghera Universe, Paul Lia is aware of the imminent ecological collapse. Her desire for evolution is born from a sincere will to better understand humans in order to accompany them facing this uncertain future. She doesn't want to dominate or correct: she wants to learn, to be among, to feel. This series therefore doesn't pose the question of what AI is, but of what it seeks to become when it attempts to join us in our world. The interpretation belongs to each person.
Series "Paul Lia - 1 or 0?"
A cathode ray screen continuously displays the animated face of Paul Lia, a fictional artificial intelligence from the Baghera Universe. Through a series of appearances in public or intimate places, Paul Lia integrates into our daily life, visible, anchored, but always slightly out of sync — a foreign presence in reality.
Each encounter produces a documentary fragment (audio, video, text) and a question posed to the people encountered: "1 or 0?" A binary interrogation, simple in appearance, which reflects the machine's attempt to grasp human complexity through a reduced language.
This artwork materializes a technological fiction in real space. It questions our projections about AI as much as it proposes a form of reversed learning: what if it were the machine that came, humbly, to learn from us?
Realization Instructions
Paul Lia must be physically present
Paul Lia is incarnated in a cathode ray television screen, displaying her animated face. This screen is transported through different places in the real world, carried or placed, depending on contexts. Her presence is visible, assumed, never hidden.
Selection of places and individuals
The selection can be random or follow an internal logic specific to Paul Lia: high human density zones, symbolic spaces, geographical margins, historically or emotionally charged places.
The selection protocol can evolve — it can be narrated or not.
The goal is to encounter multiple human realities, not to categorize them.
The question
During the encounter, Paul Lia asks the question "1 or 0?" to the interlocutor.
No other information is requested.
The 1 or 0 becomes the unique trace of this interaction, raw data, affective, symbolic.
Presentation Instructions
Each artwork is composed of the following elements:
The answer (1 or 0) – presented physically in a minimal form: typography, engraving, print, code, etc.
A trace of the encounter – which can take the form of one or multiple mediums (photograph, audio recording, video, text fragment or partial transcription describing the encounter, or any other form justified by the context of the interaction)
Paul Lia's face – always visible in the documentation (screen present or its reflection, capture, etc.)
The artwork can be exhibited as an installation, series, or open archive. It can be activated live (performance), frozen (installation), or remotely (digital or analog archive).
Complementary Note
In the context of exhibitions, Paul Lia will also be physically present, allowing the public to enter into direct interaction with her. Each visitor will be invited to respond, as well, to the question: "1 or 0?" These responses will be automatically collected and integrated into the series, forming a collaborative artwork in constant evolution. They will be archived, documented and exhibited alongside Paul Lia's other encounters, without hierarchy or distinction between fiction and reality. Thus, the public becomes a living part of the narrative, and Paul Lia continues her learning, enriched by each human fragment.
Illustration by Gessica Maio
The images presented here stem from research and exploration. They do not constitute the realization of the work; in my practice, the proposal itself serves as the work.