SAM BRUKHMAN
case study / museum exhibition / AI projection

The Endangered

A Dallas Contemporary museum exhibition where AI-generated projection, voice, instrumental sound, and local poetry turned environmental justice into a room-scale act of attention.

Artistic question

What happens when environmental grief becomes architectural? The Endangered uses a museum wall as a living image surface, placing local poetry, Sarah Kirkland Snider's Mass for the Endangered, Edie Hill's Spectral Spirits, and AI-generated projection inside one shared space.

The question is not whether technology can make nature look spectacular. It is whether image, voice, and scale can make people feel responsible to the living systems around them.

Experience

The Endangered wide wall projection with bird imagery and audience silhouettes
01 / wall

Projection at architectural scale.

Courtney Ware and Lightware Labs used AI-generated visuals to animate the Dallas Contemporary wall as a continuous moving environment.

02 / species

Local ecology as subject.

The work centers threatened or extinct animals tied to the region, including the Greasewood Moth, Eskimo Curlew, Passenger Pigeon, Whooping Crane, and Black-capped Vireo.

Verdigris Ensemble singers surrounded by AI-generated projection in The Endangered
03 / action

Conservation as ritual.

The experience asks the audience to listen to non-human life as a civic responsibility, not an abstract environmental theme.

System

60minutes
180foot projection wall
800+AI images generated
5endangered or extinct species

The Endangered frames Sarah Kirkland Snider's Mass for the Endangered with Edie Hill's Spectral Spirits and three commissioned world premieres. Live music, poetry, and AI-generated projection are braided into a single museum environment.

recognition

Recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Endangered wide room view with audience facing a large projected wall
room scale / projected ecology
Verdigris Ensemble performing in front of bird imagery during The Endangered
voice / bird projection
Projected lyric text on the wall during The Endangered
text / environmental grief
Performer in motion against projection during The Endangered
body / blurred signal

Media

Greasewood Moth / AI projection excerpt

Media + recognition

Dallas Contemporary

Verdigris Ensemble and Dallas Contemporary presented The Endangered as part of a fall season on ecological justice

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Onstage NTX

"An impressive and complex multi-media show"

read review
WRR 101

Verdigris concert combines AI with music to advocate for Texas' endangered species

listen/read
Green Source Texas

The Endangered at Dallas Contemporary

view listing

Project details

production
  • Museum exhibition / AI projections / environmental justice
  • 60-minute experience at Dallas Contemporary
  • AI-generated visuals across a 180-foot wall
music + text
  • Sarah Kirkland Snider's Mass for the Endangered as framework
  • Edie Hill's Spectral Spirits
  • Three commissioned world premieres and local poetry
credits
  • Experience and direction by Sam Brukhman
  • Projection by Courtney Ware and Lightware Labs
  • Performed by Verdigris Ensemble

Sources

Dallas Contemporary Onstage NTX review WRR 101 feature CultureMap listing Green Source Texas