The exhibition The Garden features two installations by Cailean Finn, a 2025 VKB & BAiR resident. Here, the artist explores themes of cognition, learning, and intelligence. In two projects—kinetic techno-objects—he confronts the typically anthropocentric perspective with an ecological, relational, and performative view of alternative possibilities for life. In doing so, he creates a “garden” as a space for communication and coexistence between technology and humans, as well as other species of intelligent beings.  

Cailean Finn is  a media artist, researcher, and technologist from Waterford, Ireland. His artistic practice explores the unique nature of human-machine relationships, drawing on the history of computing and working with programming, artificial life, game development, and electronics. Through his research, he reflects on how machines mediate activity, perception, and interaction within digital cultures. His current research focuses on robotics, artificial intelligence, and their agency, with a particular emphasis on emergent behavior as a medium for interaction. He explores these themes through experimentation, hacking, and critical reflection, creating works that interweave computational processes, physicality, and an examination of the relationships between humans and machines. 

curators: Jennifer Helia DeFelice, Viktória Pardovičová