(Soul of the machine)
ANIMA AUTOMATA
If the machine can host the ghost of human intent, where does our worldly essence end and our algorithmic expansion begin?
PATRICK TRESSET & CÉLINE SHEN
Curated by Valentina Buzzi
Сhapter I ✶ May 21 – May 27, 2026 (Patrick Tresset Solo)
Сhapter II ✶ June 2 – June 20, 2026 (duo show Patrick Tresset & Celine Shen)
Artist Talk and performance Robot Journal: June 13, 2026, 4pm ~ 6pm
ArtVerse Gallery is proud to present Automata Anima (Soul of the Machine), a two-chapter exhibition navigating the symbiotic territories where human instinct meets algorithmic agency. By bringing together the robotic investigations of Patrick Tresset and the phygital cosmologies of Celine Shen, the exhibition explores the "anima"—the vital breath—as a force that flows through carbon and code alike. Both artists approach technology as an expansion of the self and the physical world, blurring boundaries between human and non-human cosmologies, and using robots and algorithms to stretch the limits of human perception, epistemology, artistic practice, and spiritual inquiry.
The exhibition articulates into two chapters, the first being a solo presentation of Patrick Tresset, pioneer in employing robots as expanded artistic medium in drawings and paintings; and the second, featuring a conversation between Tresset and Celine Shen, representative of the new vanguard of interdisciplinary artists working at the intersection of traditional techniques and code, and embodying a post-anthropocentric way of life in which robots and machines are companions of shared ecologies.
The two-chapter show aims to continue the direction of ArtVerse gallery in presenting and supporting artistic productions where art and technology converge, nurturing the ecosystem with new enquiries, practices, and discourses.
Сhapter I ✶ Opening - 7pm - 21st of May
Сhapter II ✶ Opening - 7pm - 2nd of June
(with Celine Shen's performance Codes Morpho)
Artist Talk - 2pm / 4pm - 13th of June
(with Celine Shen's performance Robot Journal)
Patrick Tresset, Human Study #1, 2011 -2024
Human Study #1, is an installation where the human becomes an actor. In a scene reminiscent of a life drawing class, the human takes the sitter’s role to be sketched by a number of robots. When the subject arrives by appointment, he is seated in an armchair. An assistant attaches sheets of paper on to the robots’ desks and wakes each one up, twisting its arm or knocking three times.
Сhapter I ✶ Patrick Tresset — An Enquiry into Human Traits
From May 21st to 27th, the gallery floor becomes a laboratory for Tresset’s "embodied agents", following the artist’s multiple decades of work in research and co-creations with robots, which brought him to some of the most recognised museums and institutions. At the main floor of the gallery, the installation Human Study #1, featuring five drawing robots, unfolds a performative space where the audience can participate by becoming the subjects of the robotic portraits. The installation is complemented by a body of paintings that bridges a decade of research, from the intimate and monochromatic Paul’s Memories series (2013) to recent paintings from the We Are Here and Now series (2023), where new forms of chromatic abstractions are unveiled, while the theme of the portrait remains embodied.
Visitors will be able to participate in the performance Human Study #1, and be drawn by robots during a 20 minute session and contribute to the wall of “portraits” presented to the gallery.
In the artist’s philosophy and practice, the drawing or painting machines function as mechanical extensions of Tresset’s own hand and eye, translating the human mimetic impulse into a ritual of ink, paint, and motion. A central focus of this solo week is also the debut of Seven Contemporary Traits. In this body of work, Tresset employs two AI agents as "naive outsiders", one is a storyteller, the other an artist; together they dialogue to draw stories about contemporary society and the consequent development of new human traits. Through a cycle of drawing and erasure, these agents translate semantic data into a visual language akin to Art Brut, manifesting fables of our modern condition, from Algorithmic Fatalism to Performative Identity. The works will be presented through a series of videos and prints.
Сhapter II ✶ In Conversation — Phygital Cosmologies
Re-opening on June 2nd, the exhibition evolves into a dialogue between Tresset and Celine Shen. Artverse is proud to survey Shen’s extensive repertoire, spanning more than a decade of visionary practice. An artist and "architect of phygital ecosystems," Shen works at the volatile intersection of weaving, philosophy, choreography, and digital materiality.
Her expansive body of work includes pioneering experiments with robots, intricate textiles, immersive installations, and live performances, all treating the digital realm as a living landscape—an atmospheric expansion where the screen serves as a high-fidelity mirror of our internal auras. Under the beautiful parisian verriere, on the main floor of the gallery, ArtVerse will introduce a comprehensive selection of Shen’s work, including paintings, textiles, prints, and photographic installations.
This section will be featuring as well the premiere of Miroir Cosmique, an immersive installation where the ancient ritual of tarot is reimagined through textile cards, augmented reality, and AI-driven divination. Visitors are invited to consult an algorithmic oracle, experiencing a "profane astrology" that merges the tactile comfort of fabric with the infinite possibilities of code.
During the exhibition period, Celine Shen will present two performances: Codes Morpho on the occasion of the opening (June 2nd, at 6:30 PM) and Robot Journal following the artist talk (June 13th, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM).
Performance
Codes Morpho on the occasion of the opening (June 2nd, at 6:30 PM)
Robot Journal following the artist talk (June 13th, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM).
Codes Morpho serves as a metaphor for the passage between visible and invisible worlds, shifting from the tangible to the digital through a multidisciplinary performance that blends textile design, dance, music, vocals, artificial intelligence, and robotics.
This project creates a profound dialogue between the materiality of textiles and the body in motion, exploring notions of transformation, freedom, and the emergence of new forms of sensitivity within a hybrid environment where bodies, voices, and sounds float, graze, and transform as textile becomes language and memory.
Expanding on these themes of shifting boundaries between the body, writing, and the machine, Robot Journal features Shen sharing the stage with NAO, a humanoid robot tasked with reciting her eponymous text.
As the robot transitions between reader, narrator, and interlocutor, the performance shifts the focus from authorship to transmission, questioning who writes and who listens when a machine mediates the narrative.
This hybrid dramaturgic ritual, mirrored in the exhibition by a participatory card game that invites the public to co-author a shared fiction regarding our cohabitation with synthetic entities, ultimately adopts a post-Anthropocene perspective, reimagining the machine as a sensitive partner within a shared ecology and reconfiguring our fundamental engagement with the world.
Together, Tresset and Shen map a binary cosmology, proving that the machine is not a replacement for the soul, but its most modern vessel, blurring the fine line between material worlds and their algorithmic mirrors.
Exhibition realised with the technical partnership of Maxtronics and Nao6 Robot.
Exhibition informations
Press contact
Exhibition duration: Mai 21st - 27th // June 2nd - 20th, 2026
Opening hours: Monday, Tuesday (10am~6pm); Wednesday to Saturday (2pm~6pm)
Address: Artverse Gallery, 5bis Rue de Beauce, 75003, Paris
Сhapter I ✶ Opening - 7pm - 21st of May
Сhapter II ✶ Opening - 7pm - 2nd of June
(with Celine Shen's performance Codes Morpho)
Artist Talk - 2pm / 4pm - 13th of June
(with Celine Shen's performance Robot Journal)