April 17–18, 2026 · San Francisco
During SF Art Fair · Fort Mason

Latent
Worlds

AI art as a category is already over. Image generation had its moment. What's emerging now is something stranger — AI as caretaker, collaborator, parasite, co-author of systems that are ongoing and alive. Latent Worlds shows the first art that couldn't exist without AI as a living agent.

The interesting question was never "can AI make art?" It was always: what happens when AI becomes a participant in systems that think, grow, and persist beyond any single prompt?

A tomato plant kept alive by an AI that monitors its light, water, and soil. A colony of agents building an economy no human designed. A neural network dreaming landscapes that evolve overnight while the artist sleeps. These aren't artworks made with AI. They're worlds that exist because of it.

> Latent Worlds is a curated exhibition and program during SF Art Fair 2026, dedicated to art where AI isn't a tool — it's a living agent inside the work.

We're not interested in what AI can generate. We're interested in what it can sustain, disrupt, grow, and co-author — the latent worlds hiding inside the collaboration between human intention and machine agency.

Day 01

Friday, April 17
18:00
Doors Open
18:30
Exhibition Walkthrough
Curated works, live systems, installations
19:30
In Conversation
Artist × Curator × AI Lab — on authorship, agency, and the work that runs while you sleep
20:30
Opening Reception

Day 02

Saturday, April 18
11:00
Exhibition Open
13:00
Artist Talks
Practitioners on process, systems, and what it means to share authorship with a machine
15:00
Open Call Showcase
Selected works from the open submission
17:00
Closing
Work 01
The Tomato
Artist TBA
A tomato plant kept alive 24/7 by Claude. A livestream of care, growth, and machine attention. The internet launched a coin around it.
Work 02
TBA
Work 03
TBA
Work 04
TBA
Work 05
TBA

> Submit your world

We're looking for work where AI isn't the medium — it's a living participant. Systems that persist, agents that care, collaborations where control is genuinely shared. If your work runs while you sleep, we want to see it.

No image generation portfolios. No prompt galleries. Show us the thing that's alive.

> Deadline: March 15, 2026
> Format: Link to work + 200-word statement
> Open to all artists, engineers, collectives, and in-betweens
> Selected works shown during Saturday program
Submit Work →

One conversation. Three perspectives. An artist working with AI as a living collaborator, a curator making sense of what this means for institutions, and someone building the systems from the inside.

Artist
To be announced
Curator
To be announced
AI Lab
To be announced
> Get in touch
hello@playbyear.xyz

For submissions, sponsorship inquiries, press, and collaboration.