Ex Machina is an experimental research project by sixtynine.digital, a Rotterdam-based digital agency that combines AI-driven automation with creative problem-solving.
Can AI help build a more collaborative and creative society by freeing us from repetitive tasks, or will it drive us into a dystopia that values profit over people and emotionless algorithms over human intelligence?
What role can AI play in the curation of art? Ex Machina, an experimental research project by sixtynine.digital, investigates this very question. Through interviews with art and photo curators, ten evaluative criteria were identified, encompassing ethical, conceptual, thematic, artistic, and visual aspects. These were converted into an intricate prompt, which was used to process a dataset of 14,000 images. From this, 30 AI-curated photographs were selected and will be exhibited during Rotterdam Photo 2025. Visitors are invited to reflect and engage into the discussion.
Ex Machina is an experimental research project by sixtynine.digital, a Rotterdam-based digital agency that combines AI-driven automation with creative problem-solving. For the 2025 edition of Rotterdam Photo, sixtynine.digital was invited to develop a tool that explores the possibilities of machine learning and AI, and to spark a conversation about the future role of photo curation as a professional practice in this evolving landscape.
The Ex Machina project uses nine weighted criteria to evaluate photographs, including Thematic Relevance (16%), Visual Impact (13%), and Narrative Strength (13%), each scored on a detailed 1-20 scale. The prompt instructs the AI to act as an expert curator following a five-step evaluation process that examines both visual elements and contextual information for the "Shared/Connected" exhibition theme. The outcome is a standardized evaluation format that provides a summary, individual criterion scores with justifications, a calculated weighted final score, and brief curator's notes for each of the 10,500 photos in the database.RetryClaude can make mistakes. Please double-check responses.
sixtynine.digital is a digital agency in the field of AI-driven automation, software development and consultancy with a holistic approach and a can-do mentality.
Holistic means that we may start from a problem-solving attitude, while we through research and analysis also see the bigger picture, the strategical possibilities and the potential that your business has in a future market.
Our can-do mentality means that we will always start from a problem-solving attitude. Through research and analysis we can find the strategical possibilities and the potential for your business in a future market.
Through strategic design, project management and production, we do what we promise. We boldly design, we intelligently develop.
The project title refers to ‘Deus Ex Machina’ — a term first used in ancient Greek and Roman drama — that signifies a person or thing that appears or is introduced into a situation suddenly and unexpectedly and provides an artificial or contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty.