The Butterfly Entangled Effect

The Butterfly Entangled Effect is a large-scale interdisciplinary installation and performance developed by Jingyi Wang in collaboration with Maurice Benayoun and partners across art, science, and technology. The project investigates climate transformation, living systems, and artificial intelligence as a multi-agent problem of value.

The work begins from a simple but destabilizing premise: as ice melts, dormant life can reappear. Living butterflies and tree seeds are embedded within monumental ice structures, creating a system in which climate processes, biological resilience, machine control, and spectatorship interact in real time. Rather than representing ecological crisis, the work stages climate transformation as an active and irreversible condition.

Structured as a dialogue between a Nordic outdoor site and a parallel indoor multi-site installation, the project combines melting ice monoliths, real-time environmental data, immersive sound, laser systems calibrated to sea-level measurements, and AI-driven environmental regulation. The artificial intelligence functions not merely as an image generator but as an environmental agent with authority over the physical conditions of the work. It negotiates contradictory objectives: maximizing biological survival, faithfully reflecting climate data, preserving aesthetic integrity, and sustaining public exposure.

At its core, The Butterfly Entangled Effect extends the inquiry into value beyond the human social sphere. It asks how human, ecological, and artificial systems of value enter into conflict, strategic negotiation, and the emergence of new forms of legitimacy in a rapidly changing planetary future. The work ultimately shifts attention from what AI might decide to the deeper question of what values human beings choose to encode into technological systems.

The project is built as a live dialogue between an outdoor Nordic installation and a parallel indoor multi-site installation. Melting, survival, exposure, machine control, and spectatorship become interdependent forces inside the work.