Digital Artist – Mario Klingemann (Quasimondo) ✔Certified
Memories of Passersby I (2018) Impact 🟪: 94.5%
Mario Klingemann’s “Memories of Passersby I” (2018) is a fully autonomous AI installation that generates an infinite stream of portraits in real time using generative adversarial networks (GANs). The work consists of two 65-inch 4K screens displaying male and female faces, housed with a custom-made chestnut wood console (70 x 70 x 40 cm) that contains the AI brain and additional hardware. Overall dimensions are 233 x 208 x 55 cm.
Klingemann trained his AI model using thousands of portraits from the 17th to 19th centuries. He created a Tinder-like application to teach the machine his own aesthetic preferences, influenced by surrealist figures such as Max Ernst. Unlike earlier generative art installations, Memories of Passersby I does not contain a database or presets. It creates brand new portraits pixel by pixel in real time. The flow of images does not follow predefined choreography but results from the AI interpreting its own output in complex feedback loops, meaning no image will ever be repeated.
The installation was sold at Sotheby’s London Contemporary Art Day Auction in March 2019 for £40,000 (approximately $52,000), making it the first AI artwork sold at a traditional auction house. The work exists in multiple editions: the original “Companion Version” (edition of 3 + 2 APs) and a “Solitaire Version” with a single screen (edition of 6 + 2 APs).
Here’s how this rating breaks down using the Consistent Multi-Criteria Rubric method:
Technical Skill and Execution (25% of total score): 10/10 = 2.50 points Exceptional technical mastery of GANs and neural network architecture. Custom-trained models with sophisticated feedback loops that generate unique outputs indefinitely. Flawless integration of hardware and software in a self-contained system.
Composition and Design (25% of total score): 9/10 = 2.25 points Elegant physical presentation with handmade chestnut wood console and custom-framed screens. The dual-screen format creates compelling visual dialogue between male and female faces. Clean, museum-quality aesthetic that doesn’t distract from the algorithmic generation.
Originality and Creativity (20% of total score): 10/10 = 2.00 points Groundbreaking work that established new territory for AI art. First fully autonomous AI artwork sold at major auction house. The philosophical stance that the code itself is the art, not the output, was revolutionary for the field.
Algorithmic Innovation (15% of total score): 10/10 = 1.50 points Pioneering use of GANs interpreting their own output in perpetual feedback loops. No database dependency. Real-time generation that creates what André Breton called “convulsive beauty” through machine hallucination.
Emotional Impact and Expression (15% of total score): 8/10 = 1.20 points Creates hypnotic, unsettling experience watching an AI “think” in real time. The uncanny faces evoke both fascination and discomfort. At times images melt into abstract pixels as the machine struggles, revealing the vulnerability of artificial consciousness.
Total: 94.5%
The high score reflects the work’s historic importance as the first AI artwork sold at Sotheby’s, its technical sophistication in creating truly autonomous generative art, and its philosophical impact on how we understand machine creativity. The work forced the art world to confront whether code itself can be art, and whether machines can create without human curation.
