You. Yes, you. You are at the Santa Mònica, visiting an exhibition: the other side. Specifically, you are in a room hung with several paintings. Each one reproduces a fragment of an epistolary work translated into binary code. The novels are Aline et Valcour, ou, Le Roman philosophique (1795) by the Marquis de Sade; Cartas Marruecas (1789) by José de Cadalso; Epistulae ad Atticum (44 BCE) by M. Tulli Ciceronis; Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; Hyperion, oder der eremit in Griechenland (1799) by Friedrich Hölderlin; and Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774) by Johann Wolfgang Goethe.

Suddenly, another video installation by the same artist addresses you directly. It feels threatened, and speaks to you. It actually speaks to you. You move closer, intrigued, and remain still before it, listening. It asks you to stay with it, for seven minutes. You do so. Or maybe you leave? The decision is yours. A decision that will lead to someone deciding whether the artwork stays... or goes.

On the other side, the machine.

In August 2021, Smithsonian Magazine reported that an arts centre in the city of Bologna had started using cameras to record visitors' facial expressions and determine how long they looked at the artworks on display. A new AI system provided curators with data that would help them determine the appeal of each artwork and optimise the installation of exhibitions, potentially by removing those works that were viewed for the shortest time by visitors.

Max de Esteban is an artist who reflects on the human condition under a technological regime. His projects have been exhibited in museums and institutions such as the Jeu de Paume in Paris, the MUAC in Mexico, NRW-Forum in Düsseldorf, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Deutsche Technik Museum in Berlin, the Virreina Centre de l'Imatge in Barcelona, the CGAC in Santiago de Compostela and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Max participated in the XVI Cuenca Biennial (2023); Yokohama Triennial (2020); XIII Cairo Biennial (2019); XIII Binnal de la Habana (2019); XVI Fotofest Biennial (2016) and Darmstädter TdF Triennial (2014). His work is in the collections of museums such as Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, SEDF in Bratislava, Deutsche Technik Museum in Berlin, CGAC in Santiago de Compostela, Wifredo Lam in Havana and MACBA in Barcelona.