Miao YingCome, Sit, Stay
Current Museum Exhibition
Belvedere 21
Vienna
Austria
10 Jul – 4 Oct 2026
read inGerman
In her first solo exhibition in Europe, Chinese artist Miao Ying draws an unexpected analogy between artificial intelligence and the animal kingdom. Few technological innovations have the potential to transform society as profoundly as AI. Miao Ying’s remarkable artistic practice engages with the collective sense of wonder and disbelief surrounding this transformation, illuminating the technical foundations of artificial intelligence while exploring the deeply human desire to control this emerging technology. Following artistic training in China and the United States, Miao Ying has developed a critical, often ironic body of work at the intersection of technology, ideology, and digital visual culture. Through installations, videos, and paintings, she examines the mechanisms of digital surveillance, state control, and media manipulation. Come, Sit, Stay—the title of her solo exhibition at Belvedere 21, borrowed from common dog-training commands—highlights Miao Ying’s deliberate parallel between dog training and the human training of artificial intelligence. Clearly defined commands govern learning and control in both cases, shaping the behavior of dogs as well as AI systems. In her most recent works, Miao Ying employs AI-generated digital imagery created with generative neural networks under carefully defined parameters before translating these images into analog, painterly forms. By intertwining digital technologies with traditional image-making, she challenges our understanding of reality, authorship, and control. This translation from the digital to the physical gives tangible form to the often abstract processes of data computation, making their aesthetics perceptible through material experience. At the same time, the artist draws on cultural metaphors whose origins long predate modern computing. References to medieval notions of magic, alchemy, and conjuration suggest that technological innovation has always been accompanied by projections, irrational fears, and aspirations. By bringing these historical visual traditions into dialogue with the latest advances in artificial intelligence, Miao Ying offers a perspective that is both critical and humorous on a technology whose far-reaching social consequences are only beginning to emerge.
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