Beware the technology rat trap: Cooper Jacoby’s standout contribution to New York’s Whitney Biennial

Artist Cooper Jacoby is highlighted as a standout of New York’s Whitney Biennial for sculptures examining how AI companies and other corporations convert personal data into financial assets. In a green-carpeted installation he likens to a “rat trap,” Jacoby presents five works, including the 2026 piece Estate (July 10, 2022), a folding screen with an intercom that speaks AI-generated, editorialized versions of an anonymous deceased person’s social media posts. The system uses trained and adapted AI models to generate voice outputs, with a camera scanning visitors and objects (such as food and drinks) to trigger related content, while a screen counts time elapsed since the subject’s death. Jacoby says he selects subjects primarily for having large datasets, underscoring what he describes as the lack of regulation and norms around “living online and dying online.”

Read the full article at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events