In a recent exhibition in Copenhagen, visitors stepped into a dark room and met an unusual host: A Jaguar It saw the crowd, chose individuals, and started sharing stories about his daughter, her rainfall, and fire, which once threatened her home – Bolivia’s Amazon. AI-operated creature is live interaction with HUK, corresponding to each visitor based on visual signals. Bolivian Australian artist Violet Ayala made a piece during an art Mill residenceOne of the world’s leading AI research centers.
These residences, usually hosted by tech labs, museums, or academic centers, provide artists access to equipment, calculations and colleagues to support creative use with AI. “My goal was to build a robot that may represent something more than humans; some uncontrolled,” Ayala says. Ayala’s Jaguar is a clever use of early AI, but it is also a symbol of a broad movement: a rapid growing crop of artist residences that put the AI tool directly into the hands of the creators, while how technology is estimated by audiences, MPs and courts.
In recent years, such residences have expanded rapidly, new programs are emerging throughout Europe, North America and Asia – like Max plank institute And this Setty Institute Program. Many technologists describe them as one Soft powerThe pieces are depicted in galleries by artists participating in AI Kala Niwas Museum of modern art In New York and Center pompido In Paris.
Villa Albertin, one of the latest programs, was launched by the French American Cultural Organization. In early 2025, the organization created a dedicated AI track, adding four new inhabitants per year for 60 artists, thinkers and creators, who host the annual host. The initiative was announced at an AI summit in Paris with French Culture Minister Rachida Dati and supported by CEO of Fidji Simo, Applications of OpenaiI.
“We are not choosing sides to open space for investigation,” says Villa Albertin director Mohammad Bubadallah. “Some residents may criticize AI or detect its risks.” In 2024, Villa Albertin hosted a summit called Kala at the age of AI, which attracts more than 500 attendees and participants from Openai, Mozilla, SAG-AFTRA, and US and French copyright offices, which according to Bobdallah.
Bubdallah says that these programs are “designed to select the artist, not only their work.” They provide artists with time and resources required to detect art projects using AI. “Even if someone uses AI extensively, they should clarify their intentions. It is not only about the output – it’s about the author.” As he says, “The equipment should be behind the human.”
Such cultural framing is to promote artistic production, but it can also affect how AI is seen by the public, often pushing back to negative perception around AI art. “An AI developer is valid by packaging AI, a moralist and director at Cornell University, Triaston Goitz, says that it may want to change the mind about this, which is similar to traditional artistic practice.” “It may seem more acceptable.”
“Here the real value is giving artists a place to struggle with themselves.”
Residences can support specific artists, but they do not address extensive concerns around AI art. “Changing the context from random users does not change the main issues by motivating the model in the discords for formal habitats,” says Goitz. “Labor is still being taken.”
These legal questions are unresolved around the authorization and compensation. In the US, stability AI, class-action trial by artists against Midzorney, and other tests are using whether trained generic models use properly on copyright work.
The courts will decide these questions, but can shape public emotion boundaries: AI-rented art is considered culturally derivative or exploitative, it becomes difficult to defend its validity in policy or law, and vice versa.
A similar dynamic was played a century ago. In 1908, US Supreme Court Government He rolls the piano, then a new format to reproduce the music was not subject to copyright, as they were not readable by the human eye. Musicians, publishers and the public widely backed to the Congress to pass the 1909 Copyright Act, introduced a compulsory licensing system, which required payment for mechanical reproduction.
“These models have a recognizable beauty,” says Goitz. “The more we are in touch with these scenes, the more ‘normal’ they can look.” This normalization, he guesses, can soften resistance not only for AI art but also AI in other domains.
“There has always been a debate around inspiration vs. literary theft,” says Bubaballah. “Here the real value is giving artists a place to struggle with themselves.”
Ayala argues that “the problem is not that AI copies – humans constantly copy – it is not equally distributed: big companies benefit the most.”
Despite those challenges, Ayala sees residences as important sites of experimentation. “We can’t just criticize that AI was created by privileged men, we have to actively manufacture options,” she says. “It’s not about what I want AI: Already it is. We are transitioning as a species how we remember, and co-form.”
