Deutsche Telekom and the Kunstmuseum Bonn are awarding the Human AI Art Award for the third time, which they jointly launched in 2024. This year’s winner is the artist of Tamil descent, Christopher Kulendran Thomas. The award ceremony on June 24th will also mark the opening of the nearly three-month exhibition in the Human AI Art Space in front of the Kunstmuseum Bonn. It will feature his work Peace Core, 2026 as a site-specific immersive installation. The Human AI Art Award recognizes artists who work at the intersection of visual art and cutting-edge technology, particularly artificial intelligence, and who are pioneers in this field.

For the 2026 Human AI Art Award, Christopher Kulendran Thomas has adapted his work “Peace Core” into an immersive installation, exploring political and cultural narratives and drawing a connection from the geopolitical tipping point to the TikTok algorithm. The multi-channel work displays US television programs in the moments leading up to the attacks of September 11, 2001. An AI algorithm endlessly prioritizes and shuffles these clips, thus preserving the moment before the War on Terror, which ultimately led to the crushing of the Tamil independence movement by the Sri Lankan government. The work raises questions about Pax Americana and the role of technology in the production and preservation of culture and identity.

Christopher Kulendran Thomas lives and works in London and Berlin. He spent his formative years in London after his family fled the increasing ethnic oppression of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Today, the artist uses innovative technologies for his interdisciplinary practice and collaborates with technologists, architects, writers, journalists, designers, musicians, and activists from around the world.