Pierre Huyghe: UUmwelt

Pierre Huyghe uses machine learning and fMRI brain scans to visualize what a neural network imagines from human thought, displayed on screens throughout MoMA's Sculpture Garden.

Why go

The work merges neuroscience with AI in real time—visitor gazes and simulated cancer cell mutations trigger new image generation, collapsing boundaries between human and machine cognition in a live, evolving ecosystem.

What to expect

Freestanding screens throughout the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden displaying hallucinatory, fragmentary images generated by an artificial neural network trained on fMRI data; the work responds dynamically to visitor presence and algorithmic inputs.

Things to know

• Collaboration with neuroscientists at Kamitani Lab/Kyoto University and ATR
• Title riffs on the German scientific term umwelt (environment), with an extra 'U' to propose an unstable boundary between human and machine
• Work activated in real time by visitor gazes detected by sensors and data from virtual cancer cell mutation simulations
• Organized by Stuart Comer, The Lonti Ebers Chief Curator of Media and Performance
• Leadership support from the Steven A. and Lisa Tananbaum Endowment for Contemporary Art Commissions

Plan your visit

Free with museum admission. Located in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden on Floor 1. Check MoMA's hours before visiting; the work is activated by visitor presence, so timing may affect the experience.