Nightcall (Not AI)

IVONA TAU (B. 1990)
Nightcall (Not AI)
signed, dated, and inscribed with seed phrase on the reverse
print on aluminum dibond with spray paint, image made using styleGAN, Python
23 3/5 x 25 3/5 in. (60 × 60 cm.)
This work is accompanied by a digital certificate of authenticity powered by T.R.A.C.E.
Executed in 2019 and revised in 2024

The artist

Ivona Tau navigates the entangled relationship between memory, technology, and emotion. Nightcall (Not AI) is rooted in her defining GAN series, where personal photography dissolves into fluid, dreamlike landscapes, capturing the fragmented and ambiguous nature of urban life as it is remembered and felt. In revisiting the work in 2024, Tau reinforces her critique of AI’s mythologization—its status as both an object of fascination and misunderstanding. Like religion, AI has become a vessel for society’s fears and hopes, shaped more by belief than reality. People see in it what they want to see—a promise, a threat, something autonomous, even divine. But what we have is not AI. It is a system, bound by data and design, no more sentient than the hands that created it.

Accompanying the piece is a digital twin—a 15-second moving iteration (MP4, 00:15)—accessible through a blockchain-secured wallet. The seed phrase, inscribed on the reverse of the print, serves as a key to this evolving counterpart. This act of disclosure transforms the digital component into a certificate of trust, as access to the wallet is shared between the artist and future collectors in succession. Yet, the true value of Nightcall (Not AI) lies in its dual existence—physical and digital—each element reinforcing and completing the other.