What can the past tell us about photography's future? Join us Wednesday 11 September on The Hmm’s livestream platform for Photography is... reflective, the first of the Foam x The Hmm: Photography is... event series! Building on photography’s inherent reflective nature, sometimes it's worth 'looking backward to the future'—to examine our past as a wayRead More
This year, we celebrate 20 years of the influencer — with the first influencers being moms, through the highly popular ‘00s mommyblog. Thanks to the mommyblog, parenthood was able to become, and often still is, a “lively, public conversation”. For many mothers, the blogosphere became a support network. However, looking at the mom-o-sphere today, itRead More
Language and digital culture have always been intertwined. But with the emergence of generative artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Sora, many of which are based on large language models, the digital takes on a new dimension. But what does it mean to speak the language of the tool well? And how doRead More
Join our livestream here: https://live.thehmm.nl/M0ti0nMoti0n Current generative AI has us used to crafting text prompts. But what if our movements and gestures became the language we use to communicate with AI? In this event, we’re exploring a future of "Motion Prompting". What will happen when AI enters our physical world? Motion prompting is transformingRead More
In 2024, an estimated 1.94 trillion photos will be taken worldwide, with 5.3 billion photos captured daily, or 61,400 per second. With approximately 14.3 trillion photos in existence, and 14 billion images shared daily on social media, it seems like we have a hoarding problem. We often forget that behind the immaterial metaphors of 'theRead More
A walk along Google and Microsoft’s hyperscale data centres in the Wieringermeerpolder. After last year's sold-out Data Centre Tour, we've decided to return to Agriport this year with an updated program. This year, we’ll be looking at the energy consumption of AI, amongst other things. Over the past year, Microsoft for example has been implementingRead More
From typing in an image search query to inadvertently helping train machine learning algorithms by 'selecting all images with traffic lights', text can be seen as the internet’s middleman. Whether it's captions underneath social media posts or textual metadata in online image archives, our relationship with images online is largely mediated through words. Machine learningRead More
With OpenAI launching their voice AI model that can create custom voices, and text-to-speech generators developing at hyper-speed, it seems that voice AI technologies are set to reshape how we think about the voice in our daily lives. But what does it really mean to synthesise the human voice? Or to create a ‘digital twin’Read More
The Hmm's AI Advice Hotline is back! This time, in collaboration with MU Hybrid Art House. Throughout the Poetics of Prompting exhibition, visitors have been leaving their most pressing AI questions on The Hmm’s Hotline for AI Advice. Now, we’re gathering all those questions, curiosities, and concerns to spark a lively discussion. The script for theRead More
Join us at The Hmm @ No Limits! Art Castle, where we’ll be joined by six artists, researchers, and makers who'll take us through their intersections and interactions with internet culture. This event is connected to Boujloud Beats: Rhythms of Plurality, the group exhibition now on view at No Limits! Art Castle, in which artistsRead More
In our image-saturated world, where real images can win an AI image award and fake images are believed to be true, how is the photographic medium surpassing our sense of reality? And how is the medium going beyond its own 'reality', its traditional, two-dimensional forms? The final event of the series explores the variety ofRead More
What meaning do we assign to images on the internet? And to what extent do we identify with them? In the offline world, our physical traits generally influence how people perceive us. The online sphere offers more flexibility in how we can express our identity. Photography, emojis, stickers, GIFs, and memes have become a language ofRead More
Ever thought about therapy for your laptop and/or smartphone? After all, they have stuff to process too! If you've been with us for a while, you've probably heard of our famous e-Kondō workshops, where we walk you through a digital declutter. On 15 March, Digital Cleanup Day 2025, we're opening up this opportunity to you,Read More
Dive into the potential of the small file within the context of digital culture and documentary art during this collaborative evening between The Hmm and Het Documentaire Paviljoen. What does the small file offer us in terms of the circulation, exchange, or even smuggling of information? How does working with small formats open up theRead More
Performing as a girl online can be a powerful way to subvert the algorithm. And thanks to the whiplash of the girlboss epidemic, a meeker and cute self-image is now taking hold. Trends like girl math, babygirl, and girl dinner reflect a tendency across genders to self-infantilise, a growing resistance to industrialized understandings of adulthood,Read More
Join us for Talking Technofeminism: The Hmm @ Design Museum Den Bosch, where we’ll be joined by six artists, researchers, and makers who’ll take us through their explorations and interactions with technology, womanhood, and online culture. For this event we're teaming up with the Design Museum as a continued journey into our year theme onRead More
Who says the internet is just for humans? Some might say that it's made of cats, (there's even a song about it). Sharks swim between internet cables, the Doge meme has increased breeding of the Shiba Inu, and petfluencers amass millions of followers whilst spreading animal advocacy. Researchers use AI to decode whale language, andRead More
The Hmm opens a playful AI lab during Dutch Design Week 2025 to celebrate the launch of ai, ai ai: a hands-on guide to play, fail & tinker with machines. This living publication and web project, on the topic of co-creating with AI, is developed by The Hmm and Hogeschool van Amsterdam. We are constantlyRead More
Over the past decade or so, the self-help industry has made the leap from books to online with a rise in gymfluencing, wellness guru culture, and all sorts of coaching. Under the auspices of “becoming the best version of yourself”, there is an endless treadmill of influencers and online communities who are ready to teachRead More
Artists, designers, and makers often struggle with processes of archiving their own work. This is especially true for individuals or collectives who work digitally or who have more intersectional and social practices. Archiving your own work can often feel like a lonely task, and one that gets left behind, forgotten, moved to the end ofRead More