Exodus: Italian artist uses AI to immerse viewers in war's destruction

Inside a dimly lit gallery in Naples, people gather around a camera aimed at a darkened room. Curiosity pulls them closer. Some start waving their arms while others watch in astonishment as their AI-generated reflections appear on a wall before them. One young woman puts her face right in front of the camera and sees herself in a bombed out house with debris scattered on the ground around her. She stays there a moment before walking away in tears, her hand trembling over her mouth.

This is Exodus, a powerful and haunting art installation by Naples-based visual artist, Adriano Tenore. By combining real-time AI technology with immersive visuals, Tenore creates a portal that places viewers directly inside the devastation experienced by people displaced by war. For a few surreal moments, they are no longer passive spectators of distant tragedies; they are inside the destruction.

Although Tenore doesn’t wish for people to cry when they see his project, he understands that when people have strong reactions to it, the project has served its purpose.

“On the one hand it's bad to see [people cry], but it also makes me understand that it worked. The viewer arrived where she needed to arrive” he tells TRT World.

Technology meets purpose

While fine tuning and developing the technology for several months in 2024, Tenore realised that he had a strong communication tool in his hands, he just had to decide what he wanted to communicate.

After being inundated with images of mass destruction and maimed civilians pouring out of Palestine's Gaza from Israel’s assault on the occupied territory, Tenore decided that he wanted to use his technology to put people, even if just for a few seconds, in the shoes of those suffering in Gaza.

“Once I developed this technology I understood that I had a super powerful tool in my hand because it allowed me to reinvent reality in real time” Tenore says. “The idea seemed to me to be the perfect moment to be able to talk about something more important that was linked to current events and a rather urgent, problematic, serious and atrocious situation which is that of Palestine.”

When Exodus first debuted in April, more than 34,000 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza. Now, more than a year after Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, the death toll has risen to nearly 45,000 with more than 106,000 wounded. The International Criminal Court is currently seeking an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Giulia, a second generation Palestinian activist and member of the Handala Ali Cultural Centre in Naples’ old city, believes that it is vitally important to discuss Palestine, especially when it comes to art and artistic expression.

“I think the most important thing, especially this year, is to never stop talking about Palestine” she explains. “The interpretation of Palestine, also in Western art, is fundamental for people who perhaps have not participated in protests.”

From spectators to participants

Although she explains it is important to centre Palestinian artists and voices, she thinks it is necessary to grab people’s attention for longer periods of time than simply fleeting images on social media.

“The unique thing about this project is that the viewers become participants in the images themselves” Giulia says. “These people don’t expect what will happen next, they just see a portrayal of the destruction of Gaza. Then they find themselves projected inside of the image and it gives them a strong reaction because up until now they have just been observers but now they find themselves within the images.”

AI and the ethics of impact

While Exodus has drawn praise for its emotional power, it has also sparked questions about the role of generative AI in art. Critics argue that AI blurs the line between authentic artistic expression and machine-generated visuals.

For software engineers and data scientists, the question of the limitations of this kind of technology are increasingly more complicated.

Carmen Baiano, a data scientist that works with AI, believes that people, both inside and outside the computer science community, are not thinking about where this technology could take us.

“From my point of view we are not always thinking of the implications of what we do, we get so caught up in the fact that we are developing a new technology that we become lost” Baiano tells TRT World.

In addition to the technology potentially ending up in the wrong hands, she questions whether projects that use AI like Exodus will have any kind of lasting effect on its audience or if it’s just a fleeting emotion that people will only feel in the moment of the show.

“I don’t know if you go to the show and see it and experience it, if it’s enough to really affect how people live their life… I don’t know if it will be enough for people to take actions like participating in a boycott” she says.

For Tenore, the fleeting impact that his work could have on his audience is not lost on him. He acknowledges its limitations but is optimistic about not just the outcome of his project but any kind of art that aims to change the way people see and understand the world around them.

“Art not only should change the world but it must” he explains to TRT World. “I think if art can put technological progress to good use and if its in the right, ethical hands, it will change the world.”

Global vision

Tenore’s vision for Exodus extends beyond Gaza. He hopes to adapt the project to highlight other ongoing conflicts, such as those in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where violence and displacement continue largely unnoticed by global media.

“Exodus can be applied to any other conflict or genocide that is happening today” he explains.

Back in the small art gallery in Naples, the room is thick with silence. The sounds of distant explosions and sirens echo from speakers in the corner. People step in front of the camera, one after another, their expressions shifting from fascination to discomfort. A green couch in the room transforms on screen into rubble and weeds. The walls seem to collapse. The viewers are no longer in Naples; they are somewhere far more harrowing.

In these moments, Tenore’s message comes to life: Exodus bridges the chasm between the observer and the observed, between safety and suffering. For just a moment, it makes the incomprehensible real.