As a visual artist and filmmaker, a critical stance towards predictability and uniformity is almost second nature. In the arts, we look for the unexpected, for autonomy and if possible, the new.
René Girard called these ideas the romantic lie. He had a good point. But as the influence of algorithms and A.I grows, it makes sense to look at these matters again. Is the search for the original, authentic and the unresolved that contemporary artists are driven by, perhaps an indispensable connection to being human?

Our cognitive experience is increasingly shaped by affirming content, surpassing information that challenges or surprises. In times of uncertainty, the tendency toward imitative behavior also grows. With A.I. as an example and mimetic desire as a driving force, people, objects, and language seem to be nudged towards similarity.

In Barbara Visser's project Unfluence she explores how the merging of physical reality and its digital representation alters who we are—or who we think we are. An urgent issue today, as we are witnessing a process in which knowledge, attention, and emotion are increasingly triggered and shaped by predictive and amplifying systems. Whatever is difficult, dissonant, or unclear is driven into the periphery. That changes not only what is visible, but subsequently also how we think, speak, and perhaps even feel.

These matters are at stake in the conversation in which she wonders how ideas about authenticity, independent thinking and copying behavior are subject to change in an era of algorithmically driven images and ideas.