Modern Guru and the Path to Artificial Happiness is alive with AI – a new type of art interaction with the central character dispensing wisdom as he detects visitors. Modern paths to happiness are explored along a mystical journey, raising questions about wisdom, happiness and spirituality in the age of AI.

Innovation, functionality, and creativity are evidenced in the reconfiguration of the experience for varying sites and markets while ensuring that the message remains affecting, and the art pushes technical and artistic boundaries.

Originally designed around the alcoves, vaulted ceilings, and beams in a 12th Century Chapel in the Centre D’Art Les 3 CHA contemporary French gallery. Subsequently tripled in size for a 1000 square metre black box experience, custom elements were created to address onsite features. At the Amsterdam Light Festival, a panorama of glass walls exposed to the work to a waterside boardwalk. For iLight Festival in Singapore the show is being recontextualised into its own cloistered, temple-like setting.

In all exhibitions visitors move through a glowing landscape of whimsical mountains chanting incantations and blinking innocently from digital eyes. In the French and Dutch exhibitions visitors encountered a ten-metre-tall Yogi hanging from the ceiling, who chimed to acknowledge each audience member. Longer flourishes were gifted to every seventh passer-by – seven being significant in Western religion. In Taiwan, Yogi was reconfigured into The Forest Dancer, a 10-metre-tall structure balanced via carefully calibrated air pressure.

The Taiwanese experience required a unique technical feat whereby 50 connected inflatables – strong enough to withstand many audience members simultaneously – were created to obscure a 20-metre-long staircase. At the top, an eight-metre LED screen offered an interactive experience using motion sensor, known as the Sun God.

Having progressed through the various characters: Forest Dancer/Yogi, the Whispering Mountains and The Sun God, visitors encounter the final section – Modern Guru – a translucent ovoid with four digital eyes, floating above a ceremonial ring of LEDs. From the Guru’s mouth flows absurdist messages prompting questions about wisdom and spirituality in an AI future. AI software produces the messages and machine learning detects the presence of phones.

To expand for Taiwan and create an imposing entrance for Singapore, eight-metre-tall trees were produced – the AI Wayward Forest. Deliberately eery, this eeriness references forests of warning in folklore to symbolise the future of AI and what it may mean for humanity.

Sustainability is a key consideration with the entire 1000 square metre exhibition constructed from inflatables to minimise hard materials and cut down on air miles. All exhibition fabric is recycled through a plastics recycling company. The skins are broken down, processed and returned to raw plastic for reuse in packaging as textiles and other products.