Installation image courtesy of the artist.

Modern Guru and the Path to Artificial Happiness is an immersive new media installation that uses the intersection of art and technology to explore modern paths to happiness through a warped world of digital technology and AI.

At the entrance to Modern Guru, visitors navigate the Glitchy Wood, a series of twisted trunks with fractured screen-like patterns. Stick insects hover nearby chanting Modern Guru’s incantations – eyes flickering with ones and zeros as if diseased with the code of their world. Fragile and odd, they guard Modern Guru as he rests against an LED horizon, waiting to dispense reconstituted wisdom generated by AI.

Founded in 1997, ENESS is a multi-award-winning art and technology studio. The multidisciplinary team explores the intersection between the virtual and the physical world in the creation of temporary and permanent interactive public art. Pioneers of new media art, ENESS artworks combine sculpture, textiles, design, furniture, software development, music and story.

Led by Artist and Founder Nimrod Weis, the team delves into the deeper potential of interactivity to form emotive responses from audiences and how to make art appeal to people of all ages and backgrounds. The studio’s style of work seduces viewers to get closer and experience unexpected curiosities, taking digital art installations out of the gallery and into the realm of public space.