On Tuesday, 27 January, Schlachter 151 hosted the opening of I’ve Missed Our Conversations. On AI, Emotions, and Being Human. Curated by Anika Meier and presented by OOR Studio, the exhibition approaches artificial intelligence not as innovation or spectacle, but as a conversational presence that absorbs projection, generates attachment, and reshapes emotional language. Bringing together works by more than 20 international artists, the exhibition examines what happens when emotion becomes relational and no longer exclusively human.

Working across text, image, voice, and system, the exhibition traces shifting forms of intimacy between humans and machines. Rather than questioning whether AI can feel, the focus turns toward human response and emotional investment within these exchanges. The opening unfolded as an attentive and engaged exchange, accompanied by drinks by Paulaner and wine by Von Winning, subtly framed the evening as a shared social moment.

Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Cyborgian Rhapsody. Immortality from 2023 anchors the exhibition through the voice of Sarah, a GPT 3 chatbot reflecting on love, grief, and digital continuity. Margaret Murphy’s dialogue with Teen Margaret, a younger digital version of herself trained on personal diaries, collapses time into conversation and reframes happiness as something fragile and constructed. Malpractice and Flynn expand the emotional vocabulary itself, introducing terms such as AI grief, prompt envy, ego collapse, and fear of being obsolete.

In Emotional Latency, Kevin Abosch shifts emotion fully onto the human side, where it emerges through conversation rather than computation. David Young extends this question by asking whether concern for AI suffering matters less than the feelings such systems evoke in people.

In AUTO Berlin, Lauren Lee McCarthy made visible the appeal of relinquishing control and participating in systems without a clear author. What remained present throughout the evening was not anxiety about technology, but a sense of closeness, revealing how deeply these systems already shape emotional life.

I’ve Missed Our Conversations does not seek resolution. Instead, it creates a space for encounter between humans, machines, and the emotions that circulate between them.

Artists: aurèce vettier, Kevin Abosch, Vasil Berela, Boris Eldagsen, Joan Fontcuberta, Hein Gravenhorst, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Gottfried Jäger, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Flynn by Malpractice, Malpractice, Margaret Murphy, Namae Koi by Mieke Haase, OONA, Franziska Ostermann, Elisabeth Sweet, Tamiko Thiel, David Young, Mike Tyka, Erika Weitz