AI artist Dirk Habenschaden has been nominated for the longlist of the BBA Artist Prize 2026 with his debut work Poetry in Black and White—in its very first year.
The BBA Artist Prize is awarded annually by Berlin-based BBA Gallery and is open to international contemporary artists. From the longlist, a shortlist is selected, whose works are presented in an exhibition in Berlin.
With this nomination, the jury recognizes a work that combines generative image-making with a radically reduced, monochrome visual language, while opening up new forms of immersive experience in the digital realm.
This year marks the first time Habenschaden submitted one of his works—and he made an immediate impact with his multimedia Gesamtkunstwerk. At a time when technology is often seen merely as functional, his practice focuses on the process of co-creation. “The genesis of the series was less a design process and more an archaeological excavation: a quiet back-and-forth between human intention and the precise logic of the machine,” Habenschaden explains.
Poetry in Black and White brings together fine art prints with video, sound, and language. In exhibition form, the work unfolds as a three-part synchronized projection (digital triptych): an interplay of moving image, sound, and text that transforms the space into a meditative, almost sacred zone of experience.
The strong black-and-white aesthetic reduces complexity and forces a focus on form, texture, and organic movement. It is an attempt to make the “mind” of the machine visible—layers of thought that remain unseen yet present, waiting to unfold for those willing to look beneath the surface and to listen.
What happens when an image is no longer an endpoint—but becomes a gateway into an expanded experiential space?
At the core of the series are six digital entities, emerging as psychological archetypes in the tension between human intuition and generative processes. They appear less as figures than as autonomous presences.
Yet the works do not end with the image.
The prints extend the experience. Each contains an integrated code leading into a digital “Resonance Chamber”—an individual extension of the work within virtual space.
The series was created in a dialogue between intentional direction and algorithmic autonomy—a process Habenschaden describes as a form of archaeological search, from which a kind of “binary poetry” emerges.
“The tool is not the point—the emotional resonance is”
Dirk Habenschaden
About the Artist
Dirk Habenschaden is an interdisciplinary artist who develops immersive works using generative AI, working across image, sound, and spatial experience. With more than three decades of experience as an experience designer, he combines narrative structure with digital image systems. His works connect physical and digital layers: fine art prints become entry points into audiovisual resonance chambers.
