The most significant problem of the technological revolutions, including

the one unfolding in Silicon Valley in the 1960s, was the belief about the infinity of natural resources — far greater than the appreciation of them as necessary conditions for development. Subcultures of the time argued that technology was capable of saving the environment and the planet while enabling space exploration. The selection of works by two collectives presented in the exhibition is a revision of the enthusiastic dreams of transhumanist theorists. They dreamed, headed by Timothy Leary, the vision of Space Migration, Increased Intelligence, Life Extension = S.M.I².L.E.).​

 

Omsk Social Club is a politically engaged art collective, working at the intersection of art, (post)politics and life, using Live Action Role Play (LARP) and its proprietary variant Real Game Play (RPG) in its work. It is an experience of re-appropriation of life; absolutely unique, taking place without rehearsal, on the border between reality and fiction. It is in this area, called Bleed, that new possibilities for political life are created and the frontiers of what we know as reality are subtly eroded.​

 

In the experience of S.M.I².L.E. — A Trip Into Synesthesia the concept of mystical communitarian practices, projections and technological perspectives are combined to create a vivid artwork that questions the role of entanglement in digital technologies and the overstimulation of society with them. It is rather a fantasy of a world in which such technologies would prove to be a remedy to problems and an impetus to protect the Earth.

The ceremony, a recording of which can be seen in the exhibition, took place in 2019 at Berlin's Volksbühne as part of the Technobodies series, curated by Yvonne Seidel.​

 

Eternal Engine uses its own methodology-manifesto, Homebook of Hallucination. It assumes that we live in a psychedelic reality, and networked through AI, neural networks and hardware, we can collectively hallucinate, dream and experience. Hallucination is defined as a state of transcendence; it also often occurs in combining elements and images from reality into unexpected configurations (Breeding).​

 

The Torrents created by the duo, are a physical artifact of memory, referring to the process of uploading identity as it happens to data. The transparent  and covered with sand polylactide evokes associations with silicon, necessary for the production of the youngest storage drives and media. Digital and off-site works elaborate on the potentials of producing new realities and immortality through technological acceleration. These resound with the question of where the attempt to transfer consciousness to technology is headed, as well as what will come after us. With the assumption that our afterlife is the afterlife of the planet, dreams of life extension inevitably collide with concerns about ever-shrinking deposits, disappearing deserts and along with them, cards and processors.

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Bleed / Breed

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Feeding — Breeding — Blending — Generate

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Zen, Speed, Organic — 3 Lifestyle Choices

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curator: Marianna Lomza 

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Special thanks to Plenti.app and ArcInteriors.