STORIES a for more t ha n human world
EPILOG
“from animals to artificial intelligence, from aliens to other forms of hypothetical entities” [1]
This exhibition is deeply linked to ideas of posthuman theory. It is concerned with an inquiry into non|human lifeforms from various perspectives. When Roy Ascott stated already in 1997 a ‘post-biological momentum’ he recognized the potency and power of new biotechnologies to alter our perception and our consciousness. Now, over 20 years later, I feel that this has become long a reality, yet our understanding of its implications is still very basic. The way biology and technology interact and enact on us is often not very obvious, additionally nature and technology are still mostly seen as separate. Taking the time to reflect on it, the term ‘nature’
[1] Francesca Ferrando: Towards A Posthumanist Methodology. A Statement. 2012, p.10
is full of contradictions, depending from which angle one may look at it, philosophically, scientifically, spiritually, its meaning changes. Further, the technologization of nature is so advanced today that nature seems no longer imaginable without technology. Online maps and genetically modified vegetables have been our daily companions for many years. We may even ask, does ‘nature’ still exist? - if it is either calculable or artificially reproducible. Even though criticizing the Anthropocene has become somewhat of a frenzy, and the zoe-egalitarian discourse has made it outside the circle of a privileged academia, we still lack models and methods for making real change. Art can foster this by a very direct material engagement that is not just representational, not just discursive, but performative and sensual, which brings new conditions into the world. Stories for a More-Than-Human World - the title of the exhibition was chosen as a literal transfer of my intention: each of the selected positions has a narrative approach, be it from a personal background, an algorithmic evaluation, communication between environment and human, or visions of the future.
With “more-than-human” I wanted to emphasize a positive approach instead of talking about negations as in non-anthropocentric or nonhuman-centred. Some of the stories are for machines, some for humans, some for interaction between species and entities, yet they are all made accessible for the human visitor obviously by arranging them in a museum-like exhibition, but moreover by addressing specific human senses and emotions to perceive the works. When conceptualising the exhibition I was looking for a unique location that would also, through its identity, fit to the theme of the exhibition. The boiler house of the protestant hospital in Berlin Lichtenberg (Evangelisches Krankenhaus Königin Elisabeth Herzberge) was built in the late 19th century and is protected as a historic monument. It started production in 1893 and was providing heating and warm water for the hospital buildings until 1986. Since 2003 an association has voluntarily managed the then newly founded Museum Kesselhaus, preserves its cultural heritage, and makes it accessible to the public. Aside from showcasing its industrial history with original boilers, the museum holds a small collection of historical medical documents and artefacts from the hospital.
Furthermore the hospital is surrounded by the Landschaftspark Herzberge. Since 2004 various associations in collaboration with the municipal of Lichtenberg have been working on transforming the waste land into a park and model project for sustainable urban agriculture. It is now a landscape protection area with several biotopes and walking tracks. It is home to about 50 Pomeranian sheep and three Scottish highland bulls. By rotation principle the sheep eat and mow the 35 hectare large grass areas on the park. In 2015 over 1000 sand lizards were relocated from the wastelands around Schöneweide train station as the area was being developed for housing. Thus, the location perfectly represents the themes of the exhibition to evaluate relationships between nature, technology, the human and other beings. Taking the surroundings into consideration the program also included walks through the adjacent park in order to connect to the urban nature. The exhibition itself was located in the biggest room of the building, talks and screening happened at the historic boiler rooms. Outside green, inside industrial, Museum Kesselhaus offered a prolific platform for Stories for a MoreThan-Human World.
Finally, I would like to tell the story of some non-human visitors: in preparation to the exhibition Peter Ameis, chairman of the association Museum Kesselhaus e.V., told us that in a prior event, raccoons entered the open doors, enjoying the buffet prepared for the evening opening, and were not impressed by the humans trying to scare them off. As told, these raccoons live in the abandoned morgue building overgrown by bushes behind the boiler hose, snooping frequently around the hospital area in search for food. Unfortunately they didn’t come to visit us, we would have liked to hear their stories as well
Theresa Schubert, January 2019
“WE CALL THIS MOMENTUM POSTBIOLOGICAL, NOT TO DENY NATURE ITS STATUS, BUT TO SIGNAL THE POTENCY OF THESE NEW TECHNOLOGIES OF MEDIATION, CONSTRUCTION AND TRANSFORMATION IN OUR UNDERSTANDING OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND OUR PERCEPTIONS OF REALITY.” Roy Ascott: “Introduction to Consciousness Reframed”, in: Leonardo Electronic Almanac vol.5 no.6 (1997), p. 4
STORIES FOR A MORE -THAN HUMAN WORLD
Being human, being machine, being hybrid
Exhibition: Christian Faubel & Wolfgang Spahn, Benjamin Grosser, Bianca Kennedy & Felix Kraus, reiner maria matysik, Margherita Pevere, Alexandra R. Toland. Performance: ℌEXOℜℭℑSMOS
Keynote lecture: Désirée Förster
Stories for a more-than-human world is a group exhibition with lectures, a performance, screening and guided tours presented at Museum Kesselhaus, a unique historical location in Berlin. Eight artists present their work at the interface of technology and nature ranging from sculptures, drawings and video to installations with electronics or living bio-matter. This exhibition is dedicated to perspectives on the world that leave the human as the primary point of reference behind. The different positions discuss and challenge the relationship between
technology, nature and being human. What would happen if we were able to abandon our anthropocentric views and adopt the perspectives of other existences? What effect could such a shift of viewpoints have? The works examine critically to playfully understandings of being human, being machine, being hybrid in a present where the influence of technology - be it on the environment or on our own bodies - is ubiquitous. The exhibition invites curious creatures of all kinds to experience new perspectives, hybrid imaginations and AI narratives. Can humans coexist with intelligent machines or a conscious nature? Can a deliberate use of technology help to identify or solve environmental problems? What are the artistic answers to the hotly debated topics of biotechnology, ecology and technical adoption? Isn’t the future already in the present?
AGENCY OF AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE VIA VISUAL INTERPRETATIONS
For “Computers watching moves” artist Ben Grosser developed an AI-algorithm that ‘watches’ movies such as Matrix or Inception. It has a
degree of agency, which allows it to decide which sections of the image it is looking at and which not, and translates the temporal structures into graphic patterns. How does computer vision differ from our human vision and perspectives of human cultural artefacts? The artistic application of algorithms for image analysis and the possibility for agency was key for the development of the concept of the exhibition.
MACHINE TALK: NON|HUMAN COMMUNICATION AND EMERGENCE
In the installation “Symbolic Grounding” by Wolfgang Spahn and Christian Faubel we encounter a living network of artificial analog neurons. These communicate with one another and enable coordination patterns that cannot be foreseen due to the open structure, thus providing an insight into a neural network that emerges from within itself. Although the machine interaction is self-referential it is sensitive to the environment, e.g. temperature can change the speed they compute. Via a drone-like sound and a XY signal recorder the oscillations of the neurons are represented, resulting in
a new drawing each day. The artists Faubel and Spahn were interested in a non-algorithmic approach to computation that has its roots in systems theory.
MANIPULATING EVOLUTION
reiner maria matysik makes sculptures that are models of postevolutionary organisms in which he proposes future life-forms. Over the years he has created a large body of work, so called “wesen”, that are part of his made up taxonomy with lexicon-like biological description. His motivation for modelling biological bodies stems from the conviction that the rapid advances in the modern life sciences will have dramatic consequences for the process of biological evolution which is for him an evolution controlled by humans. “übergang 1 bis übergang 4” investigate physical cycles and processes of changing the state of matter via condensation of water in sealed glass objects with varying shapes.
POLITICS OF THE HUMAN BODY
In “Wombs” artist Margherita Pevere confronts herself with her own
female body and how it can be controlled. The ability to reproduce and the active prevention of it via contraceptives are reflected as a biopolitical and societal issue through an installation with living bacterial colonies and biofilms mixed with the artists hormones extracted from her urine.
IMAGINATIONS OF A HYBRID FUTURE
“The Lives beneath” tells the story of a world in 4000 years where nature has formed a worldwide super-network of consciousness and made humans obsolete in a mixture of fictitious film, stop-motion animation and documentary. Media artists Bianca Kennedy and Felix Kraus ex amine a future world in which technology no longer plays a role. This film is the last part in the trilogy “Life 3.0” by Bianca Kennedy & Felix Kraus, which is shown in full as a screening with Q&A on Friday evening.
ARTISTIC NARRATIONS ON ECOLOGY
Alexandra R. Toland develops research narratives in artistic ecology
to create awareness about the every-day importance of ecosystem services in cities. In “Dust Blooms” she researched the ability of flowers to help filter atmospheric particulate matter (dust) from natural and anthropogenic sources such as pollen or vehicular emissions. The installation comprises a sculpture with living and artificial flowers, photographs from the field research, and a series of etchings where the paint was made from dust collected in Berlin’s streets and parks.
PERFORMANCE
For the opening ℌEXOℜℭℑSMOS will premiere his specifically developed live audiovisual performance “A Ritual for Floral, Cybernetic and Neuronal Intelligences”. The artist is using own neuronal EEG readings in combination with biosensory readings of a succulent plant to give the audience a direct interspecies experience. Further he is improvising with his voice and a pre-colonial Mexican instrument to create a unique auditory and spatial experience.
KEYNOTE LECTURE BY DÉSIRÉE FÖRSTER
Hybrid Art: on performative materialities and the mediality of embodiment
DÉSIRÉE FÖRSTER is a PhD candidate and research assistant at the Institute for Arts and Media, University of Potsdam. She graduated in Philosophy, Literature (BA) and Media-Culture-Anylysis (MA). Desiree gave presentations about her research on interspecies relationships and new artistic and design practices at several international conferences.
Her research interests lie in medial, aestethical and epistemological aspects of complex phenomena and how they could be modelled by experimental systems in order to become bodily experienced. As a Berlin based curator and researcher she also collaborates within various disciplines such as (synthetic) biology, computer science, philosophy and humanities, and is interested in creating space for assemblies that cross assumed and naturalized relations
“Symbolic Grounding” is an artistic exploration into the world of analog computation and analog pattern generation, a world that is governed by self-organization, emergence, chaos and pattern formation. It is a kinetic light and sound installation that is run by dozens of artificial analogue neurons. They form a network that allows for interaction between the modules yet closed to humans. The artists Faubel and Spahn were interested in a non-algorithmic approach to computation that has its roots in systems theory. WOLFGANG SPAHN is an AustrianGerman visual artist based in Berlin. His work includes interactive installations and performances of light & sound. His art explores the field of analogue and digital media and focusses on both their contradiction and their correlation. That’s why he is also specialized in re-appropriated and re-purposed electronic technologies. CHRISTIAN FAUBEL holds a PhD in Neuroinformatics and teached at the Kunsthochschule für Medien in Cologne. In his work, he is interested in what enables autonomous behavior and how complex autonomous behavior may result from the interaction of very simple units and from the dynamics of interaction between such units.
SYMBOLIC GROUNDING Kinetic sound- and light installation with analog neurons 2018
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“Computers Watching Movies” shows what a computational system sees when it watches the same films that we do. The work illustrates this vision as a series of temporal sketches, where the sketching process is presented in synchronized time with the audio from the original clip. “Computers Watching Movies” was computationally produced using software written by the artist giving the system some d egree of agency, allowing it to decide what it watches and what it does not. Six well-known clips from popular films are used in the work, enabling many viewers to draw upon their own visual memory of a scene when they watch it: 2001: A Space Odyssey, American Beauty, Inception, Taxi Driver, The Matrix, and Annie Hall. BENJAMIN GROSSER creates interactive experiences, machines, and systems that examine the cultural, social, and political implications of software. Recent exhibition venues include Eyebeam in New York, Arebyte in London, Museu das Comunicações Lisbon, Museum Ludwig Cologne, and Galerie Charlot in Paris. Grosser is an assistant professor of new media at the School of Art + Design, and cofounder of the Critical Technology Studies Lab at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, both at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
COMPUTERS WATCHING MOVIES HD video with sound 15’10” 2013
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Bianca Kennedy and Felix Kraus depict a world in the year 4000. Plants, animals and human beings form a worldwide super-network of consciousness. The few remaining non-hybrid humans have become obsolete for nature’s plans and are being forced to live underwater in floating shiplike cities. Humans try to convince nature that they are still valuable, using songs, meditation and yoga. The Lives Beneath examines the downfall of a society that refuses to live with nature in harmony.
BIANCA KENNEDY AND FELIX KRAUS are both artists working
in Berlin and Munich. When collaborating they are interested in the intelligence of plant life. They are asking questions about human role in a destructive environment and phantasize about natural utopias. Bianca Kennedy studied at the Akademie München with Klaus von Bruch. Felix Kraus studied at the Akadmie München and HfG Karlsruhe, he ist he founder of the „Swan Collective“.
THE LIVES BENEATH HD video with sound 18’27” 2016
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“as a non scientific artist-scientist i created organic sculptures and proposed “future lifeforms”. some are made of soft plasticine. the material is used to keep the sculptures changeable all the time. they serve the purpose of a model. scientists and parts of the society are ment to discuss the design of these future lifeforms.”
WESEN Plastiline and 3D prints 2018
ÜBERGANG 1 BIS ÜBERGANG 4 Sculptures (glass and water) 2017
REINER MARIA MATYSIK is a Berlin based artist and Professor at the University of Art and Design in Halle (Burg Giebichenstein) for three-dimensional design. Through the specific adoption of object, installation and video he developed a dynamic scenario of future landscapes and organisms. In this way he creates an area of conflict between the worlds of scientific research and pseudo-scientific fiction in a potential future.
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“The project “Wombs” looks at my own female body, whose leaky materiality and fleshy becoming confront myself with fears, desires, and negotiations regarding sexuality and pregnancy. “Wombs” explores the absence of maternity as a physical and political experience. The possibility of pregnancy is part of my everyday experience through simple gestures, such as taking oral contraceptives and gynaecological controls. Moreover, these gestures inscribe my experience into a biopolitical sphere, for, once released into the ecosystem through urine, hormonal contraceptives can become pollutant.”
With a visceral fascination for organic processes, MARGHERITA PEVERE is an artist and researcher of biological and technological matter. Her practice employs a unique constellation of visual works, performances, collections of plant and animal relics, workshops, and collaborations with bacterial cultures. Based between Berlin and Helsinki, Pevere is PhD candidate (Artistic Research) at Aalto University, Helsinki.
WOMBS Installation (bacteria cultures, microbial biofilm, urinary extract of the artist, glass, silicone tubes)
2018
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“Dust Blooms” investigates the ability of flowers to not only provide beauty but to help filter atmospheric particulate matter (PM), otherwise known as dust, from natural sources such as pollen and anthropogenic sources such as industrial and vehicular emissions and tire abrasion. PM presents a huge threat to human health, especially in cities where there is relatively more pollution and less vegetation to filter it. “Dust Blooms” juxtaposes the beauty and function of urban flora using a synthesis of artistic and scientific methods to create awareness about the every-day importance of ecosystem services in cities.
ALEXANDRA R. TOLAND is a visual
artist and environmental planner with a doctorate degree from the TU-Berlin Institute for Ecology. She is Junior Professor for Artistic Research at the Bauhaus-University Weimar. Her research interests include urban ecology, soil and biodiversity protection, participatory processes, and the Anthropocene.
DUST BLOOMS Installation (objects, photographs, etchings, map)
2016
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A live audiovisual performance that builds a temporary direct interspecies communication bridge between beings from the plantae, cybernetic and human kingdoms. By embedding a cybernetic Machine Intelligence to mediate the biosensory readings of a succulenta plant via the Pulsum Plantae circuit developed by Interspecifics and the artist’s own neuronal EEG readings; this ritual will speculate on a world where the distinction between natural and artificial intelligences are blurred.
ℌEXOℜℭℑSMOS
(born Moisés Horta Valenzuela) is a Mexican electronic musician, composer and sound artist currently based in Berlin. Taking inspiration from the binational socio-cultural context of growing up in borderland Tijuana (MX/USA) and being part of a Internet generation, his work deals with the ways in which the mind is continuously transformed by the flow between the virtual/ physical dichotomy. His sound works and compositions stem from a critical post-colonial historical context using new technologies for electronic music and arts.
A RITUAL FOR FLORAL, CYBERNETIC AND NEURONAL INTELLIGENCES Performance
2018 (premiere)
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ABOUT THE CURATOR THERESA SCHUBERT is a Berlinbased artist, curator and teacher exploring unconventional visions of nature, technology and the self. She holds a PhD in Media Art from the Bauhaus-University Weimar. Her curatorial work investigates the possibilities, limitations and imaginations of new technologies in our society and on human | nonhuman life. She is the co-publisher of “Experiencing the Unconventional. Science in Art” (2015), curator of the interdisciplinary event “Inoculum – Connecting the Other” (2016). Currently she is acting as substitute professor for Media Environments at the Bauhaus-University Weimar (WS 2018/19), artist-in-resident at the TU Berlin Dept. of Microbiology (2018-20) and has been recently awarded with a residency of the STARTS initiative of the European Commission (2019).
S TO R I E S F O R A M O R E -T H A N - H U M A N WO R L D 5.-8- July 2018 exhibition, talks, walks
Project initiator and curator T H E R E S A S C H U B E RT Project management JASMIN GRIMM Project assistence M O I S É S H O RTA Exhibition setup and supervision
This project has been realised thanks to funding by the Bezirkskulturfonds Berlin-Lichtenberg 2018.
F RA N C I S CA RO C H A G O N ÇA LV E S M E L I N A POW E L L LA U RA PO LA N S KA Catalogue design DA N I E LA B R I L H A N T E www.aquario.studio
Exhibition photography LA U RA PO LA Ń S KA T H E R E S A S C H U B E RT
Published by Studio Theresa Schubert, 2019.
Location M U S E U M K E S S E L H A U S, H E RZ B E RG S T RA S S E 79 10365 B E R L I N
w w w. mo retha n h u m a n . i n fo
w w w.t h e r e sasc h u ber t .com
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3 2 1 M A RG H E R I TA P E V E R E Wombs Installation (bacteria cultures, microbial biofilm, urinary extract of the artist, glass, silicone tubes) 2018 2 A L E XA N D RA R. TO LA N D Dust Blooms Dust Blooms Installation (objects, photographs, etchings, map), 2016 3 R E I N E R M A R I A M ATY S I K wesen Plastilin und 3D Drucke 2018 übergang 1 bis übergang 4 Skulpturen (Glas und Wasser) 2017
1 4 B E N J A M I N G RO S S E R Computers watching movies HD Video mit Sound, 15’10” 2013 5 B I A N CA K E N N E DY & F E L I X K RA U S
The Lives beneath HD Video mit Sound, 18’27” 2016 6 WO L F G A N G S PA H N & CHRISTIAN FAUBEL
Symbolic Grounding Kinetische Sound- und Lichtinstallation mit analogen Neuronen 2018
MUSEUM KESSELHAUS
M a r g h e r i ta P e v e r e
Felix Kraus
C h r i st i a n F a u b e l
Wolfga ng Spa hn
Alexa n dr a R. Tol a n d
Ben jamin Grosser
Bi anca Kennedy
R e i n e r M a r i a M at y s i k
ℌEXOℜℭℑSMOS
2018