Digital Art Takes Over Venice: AI Lungs, Doomsayer Robots and Glowing Emptiness at the 61st Biennale
A giant synthetic lung that breathes. A one-eyed robot prophesying doom. A light installation built from the clicking of fluorescent bulbs. These are not science-fiction props — they are collateral exhibitions at the 61st Venice Biennale, running until 22 November 2026, where digital and AI-generated art has staked a visible claim across the fringe programme The Art Newspaper.
Collateral events — exhibitions officially sanctioned by La Biennale but mounted independently across Venice's palazzos and warehouses — number 31 this edition, and several lean hard into technology. VCUarts Qatar, the Doha campus of Virginia Commonwealth University's arts school, is presenting Aghrab Idrāk: Thresholds of Perception, a show of digital works produced by its faculty, open through 22 November The Art Newspaper.
Inside that exhibition, three research labs linked to the campus each built a large-scale piece. Boost Lab, spearheaded by VCU alumnus Syed Erzum Naqvi, created Chrysalis, a sculpture that functions as an air filtration system, inhaling and exhaling like a mechanical organ. Mesh Lab contributed a dystopian cyclops-like robot that behaves like a modern-day doomsayer. xLab produced Preceding Emptiness, a light installation that turns the ordinary clicking of a fluorescent tube into an intentional acoustic element rather than a byproduct to suppress The Art Newspaper.
VCUarts Qatar's dean, Amir Berbić, attributes the campus's tech-forward approach to its lateral structure — a flat organisational model, as opposed to a hierarchical one — which he said connects to technology in interesting ways The Art Newspaper.
The Biennale itself, titled In Minor Keys and curated by Koyo Kouoh, opened on 9 May and closes 22 November La Biennale di Venezia. Most collateral events offer free admission, opening daily from 11 am to 6 pm, with extended summer hours until 7 pm La Biennale di Venezia.
Beyond the VCUarts Qatar show, the collateral programme is wide-ranging. Screen Melancholy: Li Yi-Fan, closing 30 September, centres on a video displayed on an LED panel alongside large 3D-printed sculptures of hands, feet and a head La Biennale di Venezia. As Above, So Below, associated with One Ocean Foundation, brings together international artists working with sound, light, material systems and digital media across four commissioned and three adapted works La Biennale di Venezia. Zimbabwe's national exhibition unfolds through four interconnected approaches centred on perception, environment and pandemic realities La Biennale di Venezia. One collateral event takes a former prison as both its physical setting and conceptual framework Frieze.
The Biennale's 61st edition has not been without controversy. In May 2026, after Russia was readmitted to the exhibition, the head of the Venice Biennale foundation said the International Art Exhibition is "a space of dialogue to prepare peace" and "not a court of law" Reuters.
For visitors heading to Venice before late November, the collateral events offer a parallel fairground of sorts — free to enter, scattered across the city, and this year noticeably louder in the language of machines, code and synthetic breath.
