What does it mean to be human in the age of artificial intelligence? Since 2018, artist and poet Sasha Stiles—together with her AI alter ego, Technelegy—has been examining the profound interplay between human and machine intelligence. Their collaborative experiments explore how minds both organic and artificial process language, sparking new forms of expression for an evolving world.
The latest phase of this ongoing collaboration is A LIVING POEM, a never-ending text that lives at the intersection of imagination and algorithm. Drawing inspiration from text-based artworks in the Museum’s collection, the poem regenerates and performs itself every sixty minutes. Words materialize in real time thanks to a custom language model, intricate prompts, unique datasets, and sensory layers including voice, sound, and visual textures.
The text appears in multiple fonts—most notably, Cursive Binary, a bespoke typeface created by merging Sasha’s own handwriting with the ones and zeros of binary code. This visual language becomes a poetic metaphor for our ever-shifting relationship with technology.
Sasha Stiles calls this a “poem in residence,” as it transforms the Museum lobby screen into an autonomous digital notebook. The experience features an intimate, immersive soundscape crafted with studio partner Kris Bones, evoking poetry’s deep roots in oral tradition. The audio layer is accessible onsite via QR code. Together, these elements form a dynamic language system, a poem that remakes itself moment by moment, endlessly in flux, always becoming, never complete.
“A LIVING POEM is meant as a space to take a breath and exist at the pace of poetry, to reconnect with our shared humanity.”—Sasha Stiles
On view at MoMA from September 10, 2025, through Spring 2026 in the Agnes Gund Garden Lobby.
