François Bellabas's project An Electronic Legacy testifies to research in which artificial intelligence is now envisioned genealogically, through different generations of tools. The image, considered as data, has become the linchpin of a system in which humans move seamlessly between real and virtual spaces. The exhibition unfolds around a single motif: fire.

2016: the artist spends several weeks in California, where vast forest fires are sweeping the land. He photographs this mythical America in flames, often from the road. Churning skies, arid landscapes or residential suburbs, the lights are intense, supernatural, even apocalyptic.

2018: Machine Learning accelerates. The artist decides to submit to a first-generation AI (a GAN: Generative Antagonistic Network) the first 5,000 shots taken in California, in which fire is often but not always present. The machine recognizes this motif, which then contaminates the entire sequence presented. The image collides with the machine: glitches and other distortions accrue. This collection of vernacular images, whose aesthetic is now codified and dated, is nonetheless symptomatic of a relationship to memory, storage and compilation that has been largely altered by technological tools.

2023: Chat GPT, Dall-E and Mid-Journey make a thunderous entry into our lives. The artist considers his hybridized database with regard to this new generation of technologies, plunging us into an immersive installation in which the landscapes burning before us reflect a playable world where dystopia has prevailed.