Remix the Archive

The finalist works of the international generative art competition Combine24 will be on show at the Dunkunsthalle Gallery (64 Fulton St.) in New York, May 9–June 21, 2025. The competition asked for participants to use the National Gallery’s copyright-free, CC0-licensed collection data to create new generative artworks. The Remix the Archive exhibition is a collaboration between the Finnish Cultural Institute and the Consulate General of Finland in New York. 

The Finnish National Gallery runs three of Finland’s best-known museums: the Ateneum Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, and the Sinebrychoff Art Museum. Last year, the National Gallery held a generative art competition titled Combine24. Participants used the Finnish National Gallery’s copyright-free collection data to create new generative artworks. The competition attracted entrants from 47 countries, who submitted nearly a hundred works that met the entry criteria. A shortlist committee of experts in the field chose ten artworks for the final stage. The Remix the Archive exhibition, compiled from the finalist works, was shown in a temporary exhibition space in Vallila, Helsinki, last autumn. 

The exhibition artists are: Agoston Nagy, Andreas Rau, Blas.v, Ilmo and Aarni Kapanen, Jeres, Nahuel Gerth, Newyellow, Roni Kaufman, Shaderism, and Tuomo Rainio. 

The principle of generative art is that the end result has to be created by an autonomous system. A code or algorithm devised by the artist creates a process that repeatedly makes new variants on the data selected by the artist. 

The winner of Combine24 was Ilmo and Aarni Kapanen’s Loom of Reality. Second prize went to Andreas Rau’s Inventory Numbers. The winners were chosen by an international jury. 

 New video documentary series probes the museums of the future
In recent years, the Finnish National Gallery has been actively exploring the potential of digital technologies in the museum sector. As part of this, the National Gallery has made a four-part documentary series that explores the evolving digital landscape and its effects on museums. The series, Beyond Now: Museum of Tomorrow, features the views and projections of eleven experts in the fields of art, architecture and technology, about what the museums of the future may look like. museumoftomorrow.fi