The Models is an interactive simulation-based installation exploring truth, wonder, and the quirks of generative AI through the improvised theatrical tradition of Italian Commedia dell’Arte. The installation consists of an endless series of theatrical scenes generated in real-time using text AI and a video game engine, and featuring a cast of characters acting in response to audience input. Through the archetypal, popular, and exaggerated traits of Commedia dell’Arte masks, such as Arlecchino, the characters embody tendencies observed in Large Language Models, including making things up, being antagonistic, or being overly servile.
Models (2025)
Courtesy of dmstfctn
The Models (2025)
Courtesy of dmstfctn
The Models (2025)
Courtesy of dmstfctn
The Models (2025)
Courtesy of dmstfctn
The Models (2025)
Courtesy of dmstfctn
Through their phones, audiences prompt characters to act out these tendencies, praising or booing their performances and dropping controversial props on stage that symbolize superstitions, falsehoods, or popular Commedia gags known as Lazzi. Characters perform in real-time in response – confabulating, making up truths and conspiracies, making banal mistakes – with dialogues generated by a system of AI models assembled by the artists on the Leonardo Supercomputer housed in Bologna, Italy, the 6th most powerful in the world.
The Models is infinite improvised theatre. The project is about teasing AI models to trigger traits of Large Language Models like confabulation, disobedience and subservience. Using Commedia dell’Arte archetypes as a starting point, we trained a cast of characters (models) on a supercomputer to act out those tendencies.
dmstfctn
Jury Statement
Dmstfctn is the artistic duo selected by Sineglossa for the residency at Tecnopole, supported by Cineca and FBK. With the proposal titled The Models the duo continue their research on the relationship between simulation, machine learning and AI folklore. This project will recover the archetypes of the Commedia dell’Arte to show what is usually hidden in our interactions with generative Ais: the potential of Large Language Models to confabulate, cheat and deceive, producing disinformation. Dmstfctn moves beyond simply scientific debunking and rather engages audiences in an interactive exploration of its outputs, showing how fake news can be easily created and spread.
Federico Bomba, Sineglossa Art Director
dmstfctn (UK)
dmstfctn is a London-based artist duo working with audiovisual performance, games, and video installation. Their work investigates complex systems by directly involving audiences – inviting them into the ‘demystification’ of systems by replicating and replaying them and into their ‘remystification’ by building worlds, characters, and myths atop them.
Since 2018, dmstfctn have performed and exhibited internationally in venues such as Serpentine, Design Museum, Berghain, HKW, and at festivals such as Unsound, transmediale, CTM, and Impakt. They have collaborated with scientific institutions such as the Alan Turing Institute and Leonardo Supercomputing Center.