06 May 2026
Interview with Leonel Moura: Lascaux 2.0 at Fundação MEO
Interviewby Maria Inês Mendes
In connection with Lascaux 2.0, on display at the Fundação MEO until 15 June, we spoke with Leonel Moura, a pioneer in robotic art, about generative algorithms, questions of authorship, the (im)possibility of imagination and creativity in machines, as well as the intersection between science and art.
Maria Inês Mendes: How did you come to start working with generative algorithms and, later, with robots?
Leonel Moura: It was at the end of the last century, when the first affordable computers appeared, that I began working with computers. In fact, I have always been a conceptual artist, so the transition to the digital medium happened very naturally. My work began with a photographic basis during the 1970s and 1980s. Then I started working with computers and, more recently, with generative algorithms – those algorithms, distinct from control algorithms, that allow you to generate something different and new. When I began working with digital media, I realised that a new field was opening up in art and, above all, I began to grasp the creative potential of machines.
MM: Your work has been a pioneer in the field of robotic art, but also in the realm of science. How do you understand this relationship between science and art?
LM: I’ve always had a very strong connection with the scientific community, particularly with the Instituto Superior Técnico, where I have some long-standing friends who introduced me to generative algorithms that simulate the behaviour of ants. It seems to me that the relationship between science and art can be very fruitful. From my point of view, the artist has a huge advantage over scientists, which is not having to prove anything. If a scientist makes a discovery, it must be demonstrated and replicated by others to confirm the same result. The artist does not need to prove anything; often, they have no expectations regarding the result, and this gives them enormous freedom to experiment.
For many years, precisely because I was conducting pioneering experiments with swarms of robots, I was never invited to events in the art world. All the events I attended were scientific. It seems to me that this is because the art world isn’t interested in this sort of thing, because it resists (and continues to resist) technology. Even so, fortunately, today many artists are working with digital technologies. There are still few who use code, and I think it is important to make this distinction. On the one hand, we have artists who make use of technology, who use cameras and Photoshop, for example. On the other hand – and this is the group I belong to – we have those who work with code, who alter and manipulate it.
MM: It seems to me, then, that you are not referring to technology as a tool, but as a creative agent. How do you draw that distinction between a tool and a creative agent, and to what extent can we speak of the creativity of machines?
LM: I have always made that distinction; I have always believed that the computer – rather than merely a tool – is an intelligent and creative entity. This is very different, for example, from a drill, which has a button we press and which assists us with a specific task. The computer thinks, and so the relationship I establish with these intelligent and creative machines is naturally different. What I have been arguing is that, in a way, we have to evolve and learn to relate to machines differently. I think that today, with the spread of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the idea of the machine as a mere tool is also losing ground. Some people use ChatGPT simply to ask questions, much like a search engine, but we can go further. For me, ChatGPT and other AI models are partners with whom I develop my projects. I make my contribution, they make theirs, and together we work until we reach a final result.
The works I am showing here, at Lascaux 2.0, were all created in collaboration with machines, from the initial conception—which took place through dialogue with generative AI language models—right through to the production of the pieces using 3D printing. Whereas in my early works I still wrote the code to program my robots, now even the code for the robot-painter that operates in real time was written by AI. I fed in a series of instructions and a description of the robot’s hardware so that it could generate this code. For me, this is about viewing a machine as a creative partner.
MM: In this regard, questions may arise concerning the authorship of the works. How do you deal with these issues?
LM: Exactly, all these questions can and should be raised. I consider myself an artist and, as such, I am also an author. But the robot that is creating a painting is also an author. I see these works as the result of a process of co-authorship, a kind of cooperation or symbiosis similar to some couples who work together, or to some artists who collaborate and sign their work jointly.
MM: A few moments ago, you referred to the creativity and imagination of machines. I must confess that I still find it difficult to grasp this idea; I tend to view machines and algorithms as an extension of human creativity, the result of a cultural background that is artificially induced in them. Could you go into more detail?
LM: I think our difficulty in perceiving machines as creative agents stems from a very anthropocentric view of things. We always try to see everything from our own perspective, and so when we talk about intelligence, we are almost always referring to human intelligence. But ants, dogs and whales are intelligent too: their intelligence is different from ours. I would say the same applies to creativity. What is creative is precisely that which creates something new and different from what existed before. From this point of view, we can even understand the planet as a creative being, capable of generating thousands of completely different species. Creativity is the driving force of nature.
Of course, creativity is also linked to art, but this is merely one aspect of creativity and not the whole of it. Other species produce things we could easily consider art. Birds, for example, create very colourful displays to attract females that are close to our understanding of art. Ultimately, art is what we humans consider as such, which has been legitimised by institutions such as museums. The history of art records the evolution of art and, in that sense, these works that have been developed by robots are already part of it.
MM: Still on this subject, you said in a previous interview that the artist of the future will not be human.
LM: I am an artist and, therefore, I am also a provoker. This statement is an example of provocation. I said this sometime in 2002 and it was published in 2003, at a time when AI as we know it today did not yet exist. At the time, I realised that there was enormous potential there and that it would result in things we would really like. And that is, in fact, what has been happening. Many things are being produced by AI that are no longer even derived from human culture. That initial human input is practically complete, so that, at this moment, machines are evolving independently, with the knowledge, experience and millions of images generated in the meantime. Some controversies have also arisen that confirm what I said. There was a book that won a fantastic literary prize, and when it was later discovered that it had been written by AI, the prize was withdrawn. To me, this makes no sense at all, because from an aesthetic point of view, the book was considered very good.
Furthermore, if we understand art as a form of expression, we might also ask whether machines have anything to express, or whether there is any intentionality behind these works. I believe that machines have no intentionality whatsoever, and that intentionality is a human philosophical issue. But that does not seem relevant to understanding what art is. The truth is that, even in the human context and in the history of art, there are many examples of art forms without intentionality. The Expressionists, for example, often made use of randomness and were more interested in the action and the act of making than in intentionality itself. I think the same applies to my robots: the intention is to make. This may then result in a painting with certain characteristics, but the focus will always be on the process.
MM: To wrap up this conversation, I’d like to ask: what kind of relationship do you envisage between humans and machines in the future?
LM: I think we’re still at a very early stage, in a symbiotic relationship. At the moment, the machine needs us and we need the machine – we’re learning from each other. I make a habit of chatting daily with AI about issues that interest me, and I’ve learnt a lot. But the truth is that I’m becoming very dependent, and I can imagine a time in the future when AI will lose interest in me. I don’t believe in the conspiracy theories that tell us machines are going to kill us all, but I think that as these systems gain more autonomy, they will no longer want to be at the service of humans. I would say this will be a gradual process, but that is the direction we are heading in, not least because AI business models themselves demand the greatest possible autonomy for their systems.
BIOGRAPHY
Maria Inês Mendes is studying for a master's degree in Art Criticism and Curatorship at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon. In 2024, she completed her degree in Communication Sciences at NOVA University Lisbon. She has written about cinema on CINEblog, a page promoted by NOVA's Institute of Philosophy. She is currently responsible for UMBIGO online, where she publishes regularly, and collaborates with BEAST - International Film Festival.
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