WE ARE NOT ALONE

is the Louvre Abu Dhabi's latest exhibition and a science fiction audio and visual experience featuring 7 international celebrities.

Department of Culture and Tourism, Abu Dhabi. Photo by Mohamed Somji-Seeing Things

WE ARE NOT ALONE is the Louvre Abu Dhabi's latest exhibition and a science fiction audio and visual experience featuring 7 international celebrities.

The museum's exhibition, directed by Manuel Rabaté, interprets the iconic architecture of the Louvre Abu Dhabi through a futuristic story told by international talents such as Hussain Al Jassmi, Willem Dafoe, Zhou Dongyu, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Nina Kraviz, Wim Wenders and Jean Nouvel.

The exhibition is currently available on the Louvre Abu Dhabi website.

Soundwalk Collective Photo by Nan Goldin

Composed and produced by SOUNDWALK COLLECTIVE, an experimental group of artists and musicians, the podcast invites listeners to discover the unique architecture of Louvre Abu Dhabi through a science fiction narrative. The podcast is accompanied by a short film that re-imagines the museum as the backdrop for this poetic story set in a post-human galaxy thousands of years in the future.

The work is based on the original screenplay by Stéphan Crasneanscki. The experience begins with a message from the architect of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, Jean Nouvel. The piece was originally a 40-minute audio guide for visitors touring the Louvre. Due to the closures caused by the pandemic, it was turned into a 20-minute video adaptation, which is published on the Louvre Abu Dhabi website.

A narrator then transports viewers into the futuristic world of the narrative, inviting them to imagine the museum's surroundings in a galaxy that survived long after the extinction of humanity. The water around the Louvre shimmers in blue and it is unmistakably the Louvre Abu Dhabi - but the viewer realises that we are no longer in the present. Images of the museum's architecture are combined with images from outer space - the museum is no longer in Abu Dhabi, but hurtling through the cosmos. 

THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

At its core is the future of artificial intelligence and its relationship to human society. The story of We Are Not Alone unfolds through the voices of two androids. The first android character, voiced by William Dafoe, is a museum guide at the Louvre Abu Dhabi who explains that humans have become a "multi-planetary civilisation" that exists everywhere in the universe. The second android, played by Gainsbourg is tasked with finding life in the cosmos.

Stéphan Crasneanscki:"In the AI conversation today, there is a very strong theme about what consciousness is; whether or not AI will be able to accept consciousness. Will they be able to kill? Or would it be absolutely impossible for them to develop a sense of connection?".

Author Crasneanscki says of the futuristic setting of his work, "It occurred to me that the scale of the museum, the architecture, was a bit reminiscent of the pyramids in Egypt ... I had to think about how people will think about our society thousands of years from now when they see the Louvre Abu Dhabi."

For Stéphan Crasneanscki, there is something space-like about the Louvre Abu Dhabi. His narrative raises questions about free will, human nature and destiny, and reflects on the human condition in a dystopian future dominated by artificial intelligence. 

H.H. Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of the Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi sees Louvre Dubai as a reflection of the multiculturalism of his hometown and is happy to have created a point of attraction for the whole world.

WHERE

to see "We are not alone"

LOUVRE ABU DHABI

Saadiyat - Abu Dhabi - United Arab Emirates

www.louvreabudhabi.ae