Foundry Downtown Dubai invites everyone to attend The Machine Curates, a solo exhibition by Iyad Rahwan, a Syrian-Australian scientist and artist based in Berlin. It features paintings and a video installation which explore how artificial intelligence advances can alter our perception of history. The show will be open to the public until 20 October 2025.
Rahwan, a director of the Center for Humans and Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, studies how algorithms influence human behaviour. In parallel, his art practice investigates the psychological and philosophical dimensions of AI, often through a dialogue between human intention and machine creativity. Rahwan employs generative AI systems, such as DALL·E 2, to produce visual material that he later reinterprets in traditional media like oil painting. This process reflects his fascination with how machines “see” and how humans project identity and emotion onto them.
His series of oil paintings, Portraits of the Artificial, examines what it means for AI to imagine itself, revealing the cultural and emotional narratives humans attach to intelligent machines. In works like Faces of Machine (2023), Rahwan presents diverse “personas” of AI, which range from mechanical judges to childlike figures, and highlights the ways technology mirrors our hopes and anxieties.
Other projects, for example, Black Box and Containment, delve into the opacity of algorithmic systems and the human desire to control entities that might one day surpass us. Minimalist robotic forms and confined figures evoke curiosity and unease, and transform abstract ethical questions into visual experiences.
Rahwan’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at Der Divan (Berlin), Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), the Science Museum (London, UK), and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum (NY, USA). Whether in the lab or the studio, his practice challenges audiences to reconsider the evolving relationship between human consciousness and AI, and invites reflection on what it means to coexist with the technologies we create.
To learn more about The Machine Curates, please go to the official web page of the exhibition.
In addition, you might be interested in visiting teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi, a new gallery of digital art by teamLab. We would also recommend that you read our article about four remarkable Middle Eastern AI artists.
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