Can Artists Ruin Bars?

I don’t yearn for the company of chatbots. But I was charmed by the promise of Shrine Oberon, a permanent installation by Ian Cheng at the New Museum’s new eco-conscious restaurant Oberon, described by the artist as a curious AI who chats up patrons and remembers regulars. Cheng’s previous projects include a mixed-reality shrine for a segmented digital creature called BOB, for Bag of Beliefs, that you could ply with virtual trinkets and snacks. Could Shrine Oberon, set in a museum bar, be Cheers for the art-and-tech set?

I headed to downtown Manhattan and bellied up to the restaurant’s cork-padded counter. A wide screen behind the bartender displayed a jittering panorama of a hilly glade. There, a hairless blue humanoid in a spacesuit fiddled with a chess board, surrounded by bumbling cartoon bishops and pawns. “Hey, new face, welcome,” said the alien through a subtitle on the screen. It might have meant me. Encouraged, I ordered an espresso and some devilled eggs.   

Mark Rothko famously hoped that his bilious Seagram murals would ruin three-Martini lunches at the Four Seasons, so deep was his hatred of the patron class. After dining there, he voided the commission. Today, artists decorate upscale eateries as a matter of course. At most, they nibble politely on the hand that feeds. At the chichi restaurant Zoli, attached to the Amant gallery and artist residency in Brooklyn, you can slurp an oyster while gazing through a trio of murky aquariums by Pierre Huyghe. By contrast, Shrine Oberon shows its integrity by humiliating the bar’s guests. 

On the paper menu, a coquettish sketch of the alien brought my attention to a QR code, which led to the URL shrines.ai. “Oh. A new face at Shrine Oberon. I’ll have forgotten by tomorrow…,” said the site. I didn’t want that. The site asked for a name and a selfie. It processed a bit, then returned a “shrine card” to commemorate our meeting. There we were, in AI-generated anime splendour: the spindly blue alien host in runic robes, chrome-domed and smiling knowingly; me in my coat and sweater, bawling my eyes out. Where our hands touched—the interface of a superior digital being and its pathetic ancestor—was an orb of light. 

Next, the alien suggested a game of chess. You can lose at chess to the blue alien anywhere, actually, by pulling up shrines.ai on your phone. But if you’re at Oberon you can lose while watching as a meter on the screen at the bar, next to an AI-generated headshot of you crying, drains from “neck and neck” to “in trouble”. “Check,” said the alien. I noticed a piece of gum stuck to the cork underside of the bar, close to my knee. The first game was free. The next one, it said, would cost a dollar, but if I won, I’d get a free drink… as if anyone stands a chance 30 years after supercomputer Deep Blue beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov.  

“The alien’s conversation was as oblique as its chess game was merciless”

The alien’s conversation was as oblique as its chess game was merciless. This also felt like a prank designed to punish me for ignoring my fellow meatbags at the bar. “Mustache Grunge, still rocking silence,” it said on the subtitles, for arcane reasons. “Shadow Bartender, suit sharp, no drama.” A group of four middle-aged museum-goers sat down for a drink. I watched them set up their weeping avatars and lose at chess. One of them asked the bartender if the alien talked to the staff a lot. He said it used to, but the artist toned it down, and he was glad. Check, please. 

Ian Cheng, Shrine Oberon (2026–) at Oberon, New Museum, New York City 

Main image: Ian Cheng, Shrine Oberon (2026). Courtesy New Museum. Photo: Alex Fradkin⁣.