Sebastian Errazuriz Invites You to Find Yourself in a Maze on Miami Beach

Imagine setting foot in a sand-covered maze on the shore of Miami Beach. Tall panels prevent you from seeing too far. Should you turn right or left? Left. Definitely left — right? Which way is out? Oh god, why did I walk in here?

And, boom, just as you start to feel like you're making your way through, you find a clearing. It's the nucleus. At the center is a large space inviting you to contemplate the experience you just had. And all those thoughts you had wandering through the labyrinth come rushing back tenfold.

That's the point of Chilean artist Sebastian Errazuriz's installation titled Maze: Journey Through the Algorithmic Self. He wants you to stop, think, and be curious. Commissioned by Faena Art, the larger-than-life installation will sit on the sands behind the Faena Hotel Miami Beach and is open to the public beginning Tuesday, December 5.

Errazuriz created the loopy labyrinth with the help of two artificial intelligence platforms, Midjourney and DALLE2.

While the conversation around art and AI continues to rage on — they're even talking about it at Harvard — it's not really a new concept for some artists.

A prominent and prolific artist himself, Errazuriz has been incorporating technology into his art practice for decades.

"I think it's key to always stay up to date with technology, especially in an era where artificial intelligence will disrupt every aspect of human life," he tells New Times.

He anecdotally tells the story of being a young artist with little to no money in his bank account. "I wouldn't even want to look at my bank account or know how much money I had left," he says. Similarly to the rise of AI in the art world — and society at large — Errazuriz believes "people don't want to look at something that is slightly threatening."

Creatively, however, Errazuriz's ideas are all his and all original. He sees AI as more of another tool in any artist's arsenal. When it came to creating Maze, Errazuriz typed a prompt into a graphic AI tool and asked the machine to visualize a maze made out of sand.

"Ultimately, the maze is just a metaphor," Errazuriz explains. "It's a metaphor for these times in which we're up against these challenges, both from an environmental and a technological standpoint."

While the nature of a maze is for people to get lost in it, Errazuriz's maze was designed with the intent of having people find themselves. The inspiration, he says, came from the times we're living in, where society feels more lost than ever.

"We need to find ourselves not only to remember who we are and why we're here and what's worth living for and how similar we all are," Errazuriz preaches, "but we also need to find ourselves because we need to think together, because some of the challenges that are coming, both environmental and technological, they can't be solved by a single person or a single country or a single company."

In addition to using AI to help construct the maze, Errazuriz wants to take it further and leave the viewer with information on the futuristic tech. QR codes will be used throughout the maze as part of the public art piece, leading to a free digital book titled AI Maze.

"It's more of a guide," Errazuriz says about the companion piece. He tackles a particular subject on every page — typically revolving around a topic paired with AI — and proposes a series of questions.

Teasing some of the book's thought-provoking lines, Errazuriz says AI Maze will tackle questions surrounding artificial intelligence, such as, "Will it be conscious? Will it be wise, or should I be scared? How scared should I be? Can I prepare? How can I prepare? Can it be legislated?"

"I'm trying to use my role as an artist to communicate ideas that maybe a scientific paper can't do," he states. "What I try to do is function almost as a moderator in a panel. I propose a question, and I give a brief introduction to what [the answer] could be. I use my role as an artist to imagine freely what other people might not be imagining and paint the picture and then invite discussion on the subject."

Errazuriz hopes the conversation continues — you download the book and talk to your friend about it. Then, they talk to someone else about it and share the download link. The conversation and talk around his e-book and work multiply, living well beyond the installation on the sands of Miami Beach and art week.

In a way, Maze acts as an invisible maze, creeping through the city and eventually the ether — a metaphysical extension of the physical maze.

"I think more than ever, artists have a responsibility to contribute to society," Errazuriz says. "And that responsibility today is helping people stop, remember who they are, reconnect and have conversations and start thinking together so we can pull in our smarts together and we can confront future challenges."

"Maze: Journey Through the Algorithmic Self." Tuesday, December 5, through Sunday, December 10, behind the Faena Hotel Miami Beach, 3201 Collins Ave, Miami Beach; faenaart.org. Admission is free.