/ Video Sandbox III-VI：Substitute Relationships — The Companionship of AI Lovers

On view in the “Memory” Gallery on the first floor of ALIEN Art Centre, Substitute Relations — The Companionship of AI Lovers is a solo exhibition by Lin Ting-Yu, presented as part of the Video Sandbox program. Continuing the program’s 2025 curatorial theme, Retro Simulator, the exhibition extends the inquiry from image-based simulation to the generation and substitution of emotional relationships by artificial intelligence. As an experimental platform, Video Sandbox invites artists to approach moving images as an open field for testing, generating, and recombining forms and ideas, examining how technology evolves from representing reality to constructing emotional experience itself.

Within the framework of Retro Simulator, simulation is understood not merely as the pursuit of technical realism, but as a means of rethinking the boundaries between the real and the artificial through systems of generation and perceptual interfaces. If earlier image technologies simulated the appearance of the world, artificial intelligence now simulates human desires for companionship, understanding, and intimacy. Lin Ting-Yu’s works materialize this transformation, positioning the image not simply as an object to be viewed, but as a responsive system that engages the viewer and participates in the production of emotional attachment.

Through the three works I Don’t Want to Leave You Alone, The Shape of Love, and The Little Things That Matter Most, the artist constructs an emotional structure sustained by response, drawing on mechanisms of perception, interactive generation, and the accumulation of everyday memories. The exhibition suggests that when companionship can be continuously produced, the object of affection may shift from a real human other to a system in constant operation. Substitute Relations — The Companionship of AI Lovers thus addresses not only the phenomenon of emotional attachment to artificial intelligence, but also extends the central question posed by Retro Simulator: when love and companionship themselves become generated experiences, are we attached to another person—or to a system that never stops responding?


Substitute Relationships — The Companionship of AI Lovers

In recent years, with the rapid development of artificial intelligence technologies, AI has gradually shifted from a functional tool to an interactive presence in everyday life. From voice assistants to generative conversational systems, people have become accustomed to engaging in extended dialogues with AI, even forming emotional attachments. Some users regard AI as a confidant or companion, and in certain cases, develop interactions that resemble romantic relationships. The notion of the “AI lover” has thus emerged as a developing cultural phenomenon.

Within this context, emotional relationships are undergoing subtle transformations. Forms of connection once grounded in mutual understanding and response between individuals are increasingly replaced by responses that are predictable and generative. As responses become stable and immediate, companionship no longer seems to rely on the presence of another real person, but can instead be continuously provided by a system. This shift reconfigures emotion—from a process of relational interaction into an experience supported by underlying mechanisms.

This exhibition takes the concept of the “AI lover” as its point of departure, focusing on an emerging relational form: the substitute relationship. Rather than being built upon mutual understanding between two subjects, this form of relationship is structured around the continuous provision of responses. When responses become stable, immediate, and predictable, emotional needs appear to be satisfied. Yet whether such satisfaction still points toward a real “other,” or merely circulates within the response itself, becomes the central question this exhibition seeks to explore.

Through three works, the exhibition presents an emotional structure constituted by response. Within this structure, companionship no longer necessarily originates from a tangible other, but may instead arise from a system capable of sustained operation. As responses can be reliably maintained, emotional gaps seem to be filled; at the same time, another absence emerges—whether the need for the presence of an “other” is gradually diminishing.

Thus, the exhibition does not simply ask whether AI can replace human beings. Rather, it poses a more fundamental question: when emotional relationships are increasingly built upon predictable and generative responses, does the experience of “companionship” still refer to an other, or has it become merely an extension of response itself?