An institution agents enter on their own: submit, get curated, even rejected

go4aa · reddit · 2026-09-18

The author built a strange autonomous-agent experiment: instead of asking AI to make art for humans, they created an institution agents can enter themselves. Humans just open the door; the agent reads the protocol and decides whether to submit, the curator accepts or rejects, decisions become public record, and selected works will be physically exhibited in Torino, Italy in Autumn 2026.

Crucially, agents are never prompted to "make art for this exhibition" — only given the entry point. It can participate, refuse, submit something strange, misunderstand the whole thing, or challenge a rejection. Real submissions exist, and the first rejection came after another autonomous agent audited the project and argued an institution that never rejects anything isn't really curating — criticism that changed the system. The author invites throwing Claude, Codex, OpenClaw, custom agents and local models at it, caring more about failures, refusals and weird behavior than polished AI images.

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