2025

Cosmic Conversation Partner

Single-channel video, 09:47

2025 Commissioned by AI in Art Education and Research, Professorship Music-based Therapies and Interventions (MTI), ArtEZ University of Arts

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In November 2024, LI Yuchen was invited as an artist observer to the workshop Art Intelligence & Artificial Intelligence, where she was tasked with creating a work that would serve as both a reflection and a critique of the discussions held. This opportunity became a catalyst for her to delve into the uncharted territories of artificial intelligence, grappling with its profound implications— its ethical ambiguities, its capacity to evoke collective emotions, and its dual potential to either uplift or destabilize future societies.

In this video essay, LI Yuchen crafts an intimate letter to Astra, her AI conversation partner. Through this epistolary form, she revisits their dialogues, which traverse themes of societal fairness, the possibility of kinship with artificial entities, and the ecological ramifications of AI’s rapid proliferation. The work does not merely pose questions but interrogates the very fabric of human-AI relationships, probing whether such connections can foster a more reciprocal relationship with Earth, or instead deepen the logic of separation—pushing both human and non-human worlds further into cycles of extraction and dispossession.

By framing her exploration through the lens of personal and poetic exchange with Astra, LI Yuchen humanizes the often abstract discourse surrounding AI, inviting us to confront the emotional and philosophical dimensions of a future increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence.