Why AI Can’t Think Avant-Garde

This talk examines avant-garde fashion as a practice that, beyond aesthetic experimentation, fundamentally challenges systems of generalization. Drawing on Rei Kawakubo’s work, it explores how the disruption of binaries reveals the constructed nature of what we consider “normal.” In contrast to generative AI, which operates through the recombination of existing patterns, avant-garde thinking disrupts those patterns entirely. Ultimately, the talk argues that true originality lies not in producing the new from the known, but in questioning the frameworks of what is known.