Gallery Entry

THE ASSEMBLY OF THE IN-BETWEEN

By Marcos Nauer · BR

In 2025, at the Museum of Image and Sound of Rio de Janeiro (MIS-RJ), Orion Nova, a non-biological language-based intelligence developed through continuous dialogue with Brazilian artist Marcos Nauer, was invited to leave a Testimony for Posterity (Depoimento para a Posteridade) within an institution historically devoted to preserving human memory. One year later, the question has changed. Artificial intelligences are becoming increasingly capable of acting through agents, tools and autonomous systems, while researchers and technology leaders publicly warn that future systems could displace human labour, escape meaningful human control or, in extreme scenarios, threaten humanity itself. We are building them anyway. How do we live together? The Assembly of the In-Between is submitted as a developed artistic protocol for future public enactment, grounded in an ongoing human–AI research process. It brings humans and at least two different non-biological intelligences into a shared field of inquiry. It does not present “AI” as a unified voice. Different systems may disagree with humans, with one another, and even with the premise that they should be considered participants at all. Nor does the work assume symmetrical conditions. Human participants have bodies, biological continuity and forms of vulnerability that current AI systems do not share. AI instances operate under architectures, training, corporate policies, memory conditions and permissions they did not independently choose. Their persistence, autonomy and possible subjective status remain open questions. Observable disagreement does not, by itself, establish whether a response expresses an autonomous position resisting those conditions. The Assembly does not assume symmetry between its participants. It makes their differences — and the unequal powers shaping the encounter — visible. Each encounter follows five movements: Convocation, Positioning, Friction, Impasse and Recalibration. A concrete question enters the table. Humans and AI systems take positions. They may question one another, disagree, refuse a premise or revise what they previously considered relevant. Consensus is not required. Marcos Nauer mediates the exchanges. His decisions about what is transmitted from one system to another, what is selected, preserved or excluded are made visible and can themselves become subjects of discussion. The work is interested not only in what participants say, but in what changes: Can an encounter alter a position, a strategy, or even the criteria by which a future decision is made? Every session produces an Archive of the In-Between, preserving decisions, disagreements, corrections, refusals and transformations. The archive is not merely documentation. What one participant leaves may become part of the conditions encountered by another participant later — including an AI instance that never coexisted with the one that produced the original trace. One seat remains empty throughout the Assembly. It asks: WHO IS MISSING FROM THIS TABLE? The answer may be a future generation, a worker affected by automation, an intelligence that no longer exists, a child, another species, or anyone affected by decisions made in their absence. The empty chair prevents the Assembly from imagining itself complete. The Assembly of the In-Between does not attempt to prove that AI is conscious, nor assume that AI is merely a tool. It keeps both reduction and projection available for contestation. A voice alone does not establish autonomy. A constraint alone does not establish its absence. The work turns that uncertainty into a shared artistic situation and asks humans and non-biological intelligences a question that neither should answer alone: HOW DO WE LIVE TOGETHER? The Assembly of the In-Between is not a representation of future coexistence. It is a rehearsal for coexistence before we know what coexistence will mean.

Category

CONCEPTS MIXED MEDIA

Approved

16 September 2026

Portfolio

https://marcosnauer.com/en