Telekom and Kunstmuseum Bonn present Human AI Art Award

• The 2025 Human AI Art Award goes to French artist and filmmaker Nicolas Gourault
• The award recognizes pioneering work at the intersection of fine art and cutting-edge technology
• Telekom and Kunstmuseum Bonn present video installation in Human AI Art Space in front of the Kunstmuseum Bonn

Deutsche Telekom and the Kunstmuseum Bonn are presenting the Human AI Art Award, which they jointly launched in 2024, for the second time. This year's winner is the French artist and filmmaker Nicolas Gourault with his work “Unknown Label” (2023). The awards ceremony on September 21, 2025 will also mark the opening of the two-month exhibition in the Human AI Art Space in front of the Kunstmuseum Bonn. It will present the award-winning work as a site-specific three-channel video installation. The Human AI Art Award honors artists who work in the field of fine art and cutting-edge technology, especially artificial intelligence, and who are doing pioneering work in this field.

“It's a great joy and honor to receive this award given by a remarkable jury among so many high-profile submissions. I believe it's important to remember the valuable human labor and inequalities at the heart of the AI hype we're living through, and to advocate for fair working conditions.” says Nicolas Gourault. “I hope this award and the exhibition will be an opportunity to share the work with a wide audience. I want to thank everyone involved in the project, starting with the people who entrusted me with their stories, who are doing a crucial yet invisible work.”

Human AI Art Space at the Kunstmuseum Bonn

The award-winning documentary film “Unknown Label” (2023) explores the everyday lives of online microworkers, so-called clickworkers, from the Global South. They recreate and categorize images of streets for self-driving cars. The audiovisual installation brings the clickworkers' working world to life for visitors, revealing the mostly invisible but valuable human labor necessary for training AI systems. The documentary video, presented as a three-channel video installation in the Human AI Art Space, impressively addresses the tension between self-evidence, simplification, doubt, and curiosity in dealing with AI technologies.

“New technologies influence our lives and shape our interactions. Therefore, at Deutsche Telekom, we are committed to an ethical approach to artificial intelligence and are examining its social impact,” says Telekom CEO Tim Höttges. “We welcome artistic exploration of the tension between visual art and modern technology. It opens new perspectives and enables us to shift our minds. It can break down reservations and clarify opportunities. In the best-case scenario, it allows us to experience the world anew and rediscover it with optimism.”

“The speed at which new developments in the field of artificial intelligence are entering our lives and everyday lives is breathtaking. For those working in the arts, in particular, this raises questions about their own relevance and place in a constantly changing and expanding field of activity. But artists wouldn't be artists if they didn't address precisely this and generate insights in their work that AI alone simply can't generate. That's why I'm delighted that we, as a museum, can offer a platform for artistic exploration of artificial intelligence in collaboration with Telekom,” says Prof. Dr. Stephan Berg, Director of the Kunstmuseum Bonn.

The exhibition will open on Sunday, September 21, 2025, at 11 a.m. in the Human AI Art Space, specially designed for the prize, in front of the Kunstmuseum Bonn. Prizewinner Nicolas Gourault will be present at the award ceremony and opening.

Nicolas Gourault, born in 1991, lives and works in Paris. He initially attended art school and developed a research-oriented approach before turning to visual art. His works have been shown at art institutions such as the Centre Pompidou (France), ZKM | Center for Art and Media (Germany), Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV, Germany), Ars Electronica (Austria), and at film festivals such as the Berlinale (Germany), Cinéma du Réel (France), Sheffield Doc|Fest (UK), and Punto de Vista (Spain). Interested parties can find here further information about the artist and about the exhibition.

For the second edition of the Human AI Art Award 2025, 30 international artists were nominated by a jury, 23 of whom applied for the award. Nicolas Gourault was nominated by Dr. Inke Arns, Director of Hartware Medienkunstverein (HMKV) in Dortmund. A jury composed of renowned figures from the international art scene selected the winner from the submitted applications. The decisive factor in the decision was that Nicolas Gourault's work critically addresses the topic of autonomous driving and highlights the human factor in the context of artificial intelligence training. Based on methodical research, the video installation shows how machines learn to read the world and process it as information through laborious human labor.

The jury for the Human AI Art Award 2025: Ed Atkins (artist), Prof. Dr. Stephan Berg (Director Kunstmuseum Bonn), Prof. Sarah Cook (Professor of Museum Studies, Information Studies at the University of Glasgow), Guillaume Désanges (Director Palais de Tokyo, Paris), and Antje Hundhausen (Vice President Brand Experience, Deutsche Telekom).

The nomination jury for the Human AI Art Award 2025: Dr. Inke Arns (Director Hartware Medienkunstverein HMKV, Dortmund), Çelenk Bafra (Artistic Director Istanbul Modern, Istanbul), Emma Enderby (Director KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin), Prof. Dr. Chus Martínez (Curator, Head of the Institute Art Gender Nature, FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel), Lauren Lee McCarthy (Media Artist, Winner of the Human AI Art Award 2024), Hans Ulrich Obrist (Artistic Director Serpentine Gallery, London), Jean-Marc Prévost (Curator, Advisor to the Kadist Foundation), Anca Rujoiu (Curator at Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden, Co-Curator Diriyah Biennale 2024), Noam Segal (Curator Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Co-Curator 15th Gwangju Biennale 2024), Billy Tang (Curator, Executive Director Para Site, Hong Kong).

The design of the Human AI Art Space was realized by Meiré and Meiré, Cologne.

Film information:
Unknown Label, 2023
3-channel video installation, color, sound, 20 minutes, continuous
Director/Concept: Nicolas Gourault
Editing: Lucas Azémar, Félix Rehm, Nicolas Gourault
Sound: Etienne André
Research Assistants: Leonard Nally Simala, Andrea Paola Hernandez, Niside Panebianco
Screenplay Consultant: Quentin Faucheux
Image Assistant: Héléna Michaud

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