Omni Intelligent at Mandeville Gallery at UCSD

by Patricia Frischer

Lou Cantor’s The Oracle, 2023

Ceci Moss in her last curated exhibition for the Mandeville Gallery before taking up her new position at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art is presenting Omni Intelligent. The premise of this show seems to be how we will be communicating with A.I. in the future, but the twist comes as artists are also challenged to think about how A.I. will deem to communicate with us.  Two of the artists brought the sense of smell into their work, but most are visual and although there are textures, we are still in the ‘do not touch” the art world. There is sound, of course, as we are now used to seeing headphones attached to the art works.  

 
Lou Cantor’s The Oracle, 2023 greets you at the door and sets the stage for the rest of the exhibition. The pair of lips is suspended in the air and although you have to put on the headphones to hear the disembodied voice of A.I. you are most intrigued by how this is created. A closer observation reveals that it is LED light mounted on fan blades. You can see this more easily in the photo and film, but in real life the lips are un-interrupted. Humans are definitely the lower order in this dialogue

Rhonda Holberton Other Known Tomorrows, 2025

Rhonda Holberton Other Known Tomorrows, 2025

Rhonda Holberton Other Known Tomorrows, 2025

 
Other Known Tomorrows, 2025 by Rhonda Holberton is a three-part installation, a video of brain-wave activity which records stimulation by a “perfume” essence you are invited to sniff. And a 3-D printed rock that actually holds the bottle.  This was art meets science collaboration with researcher Dr. Ying Choon Wu, who directs UC San Diego’s Insight lab at the Institute for Neural Computation. Watch for the AI-manipulated video on the front of the gallery. 

 
 

agustine zegers vaho arborescente, 2025 

agustine zegers vaho arborescente, 2025 is simply a small sample of scent. When you smell it, you are invited to envision a forest, maybe after an electric storm because she has suggested that future trees are actually able to communicate with A.I. We know that trees communicate with each through their roots and that there are electrical elements with all plant matter so even though this was a minimal visual experience this was conceptually so interesting.

Star Feliz,  in Siren of Oblivion, 2024

Star Feliz,  in Siren of Oblivion, 2024 gives us one of  the most easily interpreted work. The water vessel from an ancient society is hooked up with cables and its middle now is communicating through a digital screen. The vessel reminds us of an earth mother and there is something siren like about the sounds that go with this piece.

 

CROSSLUCID  Red the Ocean Around U, 2024 

CROSSLUCID in their game design Red the Ocean Around U, 2024 instead of writing prompts for A.I. to respond to, the game asks the questions for the gamer to answer. U is the character and Claude is the A.I. and the adventures begins.

Eglė Budvytytė Songs from the compost: mutating bodies, imploding stars, 2020 

Eglė Budvytytė created a film Songs from the compost: mutating bodies, imploding stars, 2020 peopled by alien and human dancers responding to the real setting of a sand dune  shared by Russia and Lithuania.  There is a life cycle aspect but besides aliens, it was unclear how this related to A.I. The rainbow color is not present in the actual film, this was divine intervention by the android phone!
 

Ánima Correa

Ánima Correa - detail

Ánima Correa presents the Repeater sculptures which represent the undersea cable which first started to connect universities via internet and the Espejitxs paintings which are bit a like big brother watching from on high.

 

Amia Yokoyama 

Amia Yokoyama has been working with stop-motion clay animation but for this work those figures have been converted into 3D holograms  in ceramic frames. She explains: “I am exploring what happens when something exists in multiple dimensions simultaneously….”

 
 

Marcus Zúñiga brown archaeoastronomy, 2025 

Marcus Zúñiga named his art work brown archaeoastronomy, 2025 to reference the stars in the sky. The structure  which reaches up, references symbols from New Mexican weavings. There is something reassuring about how the sky does not change through time and might hold mysteries yet to be discovered.  

           
 
Omni Intelligent
Mandeville Gallery
University of California San Diego
On view until Dec 6, 2026
Wed-Sat, 12-8pm