Project Description
The Meaning of Life. Beyond our Understanding. ChatGPT-4o. 2025
Artificial Intelligence. ChatGPT-4o. Laser Projector. Sound
Infinite Loop
2025
(Excerpt)
Dimensions variable
This work is composed of 1 laser display
The Meaning of Life is an artistic work in which a laser display projects eleven texts generated by artificial intelligence. These texts attempt to answer our most fundamental questions: the meaning of life, happiness, consciousness, mortality, infinity, God…
Like philosophy, AI offers no fixed truth. Its answers evolve with each update (GPT-4, GPT-5, GPT-6…), shaped by its time, its data, and its own technical capacities. What AI asserts today may be contradicted tomorrow. It becomes a metaphor for the human quest for meaning: unstable, infinite, in perpetual recomposition.
The Meaning of Life follows in the tradition of Conceptual Art. Here, meaning is neither given nor permanent. It emerges from the moment and the perception of each viewer. The work enters into dialogue with “One and Three Chairs” by Joseph Kosuth, which questions the very nature of knowledge, and “Today” by On Kawara, where time becomes both subject and material.
The question of whether the meaning of life can be uncovered through rational inquiry or if it transcends human understanding remains one of the greatest philosophical dilemmas. In a world shaped by scientific advancements, artificial intelligence, and existential uncertainty, the limits of our knowledge are constantly being tested.
Ludwig Wittgenstein famously remarked, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” His perspective suggests that certain fundamental aspects of existence, including the meaning of life, may lie beyond the scope of human language and rational thought. If meaning exists, it may be ineffable, beyond what philosophy or science can articulate.
Yet, Baruch Spinoza took a different approach. He believed that by understanding the structure of reality and our place within it, we could align ourselves with a greater, rational order. He wrote, “The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.” In this view, life’s meaning is not an unknowable mystery but something that can be gradually revealed through reason, reflection, and self-knowledge.
La question de savoir si le sens de la vie peut être découvert par l’enquête rationnelle ou s’il transcende la compréhension humaine demeure l’un des plus grands dilemmes philosophiques. Dans un monde façonné par les avancées scientifiques, l’intelligence artificielle et l’incertitude existentielle, les limites de notre savoir sont constamment mises à l’épreuve.
Ludwig Wittgenstein affirmait : « Ce dont on ne peut parler, il faut le taire. » Cette perspective suggère que certains aspects fondamentaux de l’existence, incluant le sens de la vie, peuvent se situer au-delà des capacités du langage et de la pensée rationnelle. Si un sens existe, il pourrait être ineffable, inaccessible à la philosophie ou à la science.
À l’inverse, Baruch Spinoza adoptait une approche différente. Il croyait qu’en comprenant la structure du réel et notre place en son sein, nous pouvions nous aligner sur un ordre rationnel plus vaste. Il écrivait : « La plus haute activité qu’un être humain puisse atteindre est l’apprentissage pour comprendre, car comprendre, c’est être libre. » Dans cette perspective, le sens de la vie n’est pas un mystère indéchiffrable mais quelque chose qui peut être progressivement révélé par la raison, la réflexion et la connaissance de soi.