Post-human Humanities in The Age Of The Art-Subject

During recent decades, technologies raised and erased borders, hybridized and segregated cultures, while also collapsing distances and time zones. But we have too often remained trapped in a myopic, anthropocentric system of logic and ideals in our quests for new teleological aspirations, structures of controls, or even in finding new possibilities for collective participation and agency. Our capacity to shift our standpoint, to project ourselves in space and time, in reality and fiction, allows us to figure out the world from the vantage points of our ancestors, aliens, or post-human creatures like algorithms and robots. It is through this potential that we can expand our horizon to better accommodate the dynamic complexities at hand. Thanks to the recently acquired artificial intentionalities, artworks are quickly becoming sentient, cognizant, and responsive subjects through which we can improve our understanding of human societies and ecosystems. Ars Electronica Garden Hong Kong’s curatorial inquiry this year explores various paths to better understand the entanglements that surface in the tectonic interplay of divergent worlds, where robots challenge social models, artworks try to understand each other, and the faraway meets the nearby. We call for a DïaloG of curiosity and speculation, alongside a salutary cocktail of poetry, science, politics and conviviality.

Video

Artificial Intentionalities, City University of Hong Kong, School of Creative Media, Neuro Design Lab (HK), Credits: Maurice Benayoun

Planetary Wine Tasting Party, City University of Hong Kong, School of Creative Media, Neuro Design Lab (HK), Credits: Maurice Benayoun

Artificial Intentionalities, City University of Hong Kong, School of Creative Media, Neuro Design Lab (HK), Credits: Maurice Benayoun

Power Chess, City University of Hong Kong, School of Creative Media, Neuro Design Lab (HK), Credits: Maurice Benayoun

ZurückWeiter

Posthuman Art: Robots, Aliens, Chess, and

Prof. Maurice Benayoun (HK/FR); Dr. Martin E. Rosenberg (US); Prof. Beatrice de Gelder (NL); Dr. Tanya Ravn Ag (DK); Dr. RAY LC (HK/US); Lisa Park SoYoung (HK/KR); Prof. De Kai (US/HK)

Is post-human art far too human? Taking this question as a starting point, the five speakers of this panel expand this inquiry in five disparate trajectories. Media artist Maurice Benayoun (HK/FR) questions how artworks can open new perspectives by engaging the world as subjects rather than objects.

Galactic Wine Sharing Party

Pop by Hong Kong for a virtual drink with the Galactic media art community? 50% of what Festivals are about, is meeting friends and discovering new people, and this is what has been lost in the circumstances of the pandemic. But the technologically mediated routes, which we are forced to stick to, funnel us toward a more extensive intermixing of people who are usually distanced geographically, and culturally.

EASEAS: Experiments in Art, Science and Ethology of the Art-Subject

Maurice Benayoun (HK/FR), Refik Anadol (US), Nicolás Mendoza (CO), Tobias Klein (HK/DE)

The birth of the art-subject and its proliferation in the art world exemplifies a clear departure from the traditional status of artworks as objects. It enables artists to explore divergent paths as the behaviour of artworks goes beyond biomimicry and the mirroring of human attitudes, making disjuncture a powerful means through which to interrogate different levels of social concern and human belief.

Art in the Cloud | Online Exhibition

Théodora Barat (FR), Alvaro Cassinelli (UY/HK), Chan, Ka Chun Joseph (HK), Marco Donnarumma (DE), Tuçe Erel (DE), Kattie Fan (HK), Jeffrey Geiringer (US/HK), David Rodriguez Gimeno (ES), Joanna Hoffmann (PL), Ryo Ikeshiro (JP/UK/HK), Jonathan Kemp (UK), Tobias Klein (DE/HK), Vvzela Kook (HK), Lai Chiu Han Linda (HK), LC RAY (US/HK), Lin Pey-Chwen (TW), Alexey Marfin (US), Cédric Maridet (FR/HK), Kingsley NG (HK), Royce NG (HK) x Alvaro CASSINELLI (UY/HK, Ellen Pau (HK), Vincent Ruijters (NL/JP) , Yu-Chuan Tseng (TW), Tsui Brothers (HK), Ken Ueno (US), Wong Suk Yin Elaine (HK), Viola Yip (HK/DE)

The development of media art and the online art space are both tightly enmeshed with the technological innovations of their times. Art in the Cloud is curatorial research that explores how the sudden growth of online art spaces contributes to the transformation of the presentation of media artworks. Specifically, we question how inherent characteristics such as interactivity and immersion shift in online exhibitions. How does today’s online space contribute to, or limit, artistic creativity? What are some of the unexpected challenges that artists have encountered? What are some of the new potentials that emerge from the technological impediments we come across?

Art in the Cloud | Panel Discussion I

Tuçe Erel (DE), Ryo Ikeshiro (JP/UK/HK), Vincent Ruijters (Nl/JP), Tsui Ka Hei, Haze (HK), Elaine Wong (HK), Viola Yip (HK/GR), Damien Charrieras (FR/HK)

Art in the Cloud | Panel Discussion II

Jeffrey Geiringer (US/HK), Joanna Hoffmann (PL), Tobias Klein (GR/HK), Cédric Maridet (FR/HK), Ellen Pau (HK), Yu-Chuan Tseng (TW), Ken Ueno (US), Alvaro Cassinelli (UY/HK)

The development of media art and the online art space are both tightly enmeshed with the technological innovations of their times. Art in the Cloud is curatorial research that explores how the sudden growth of online art spaces contributes to the transformation of the presentation of media artworks. Specifically, we question how inherent characteristics such as interactivity and immersion shift in online exhibitions. How does today’s online space contribute to, or limit, artistic creativity? What are some of the unexpected challenges that artists have encountered? What are some of the new potentials that emerge from the technological impediments we come across?

Art in the Cloud | Panel Discussion III

Joseph Chan (HK), Marco Donnarumma (DE), David Rodriguez Gimeno (ES), Vvzela Kook (HK), Ray LC (US/HK), Lin Pey-Chwen (TW), Tamas PalWaliczsky (HU/HK)

The development of media art and the online art space are both tightly enmeshed with the technological innovations of their times. Art in the Cloud is curatorial research that explores how the sudden growth of online art spaces contributes to the transformation of the presentation of media artworks. Specifically, we question how inherent characteristics such as interactivity and immersion shift in online exhibitions. How does today’s online space contribute to, or limit, artistic creativity? What are some of the unexpected challenges that artists have encountered? What are some of the new potentials that emerge from the technological impediments we come across?

Art in the Cloud | Panel Discussion IV

Theodora Barat (FR), Kattie Fan (HK), Linda Lai (HK), Jonathan Kemp (UK/AU), Alexey Marfin (UK), Kingsley NG (HK), Royce NG (AU/HK), Alvaro Cassinelli (UY/HK), Elke Reinhuber (DE/HK)

The development of media art and the online art space are both tightly enmeshed with technological innovations of their times. Art in the Cloud is a curatorial research that explores how the sudden growth of online art spaces contributes to the transformation of the presentation of media artworks. Specifically, we question how inherent characteristics such as interactivity and immersion shift in online exhibitions? How does today’s online space contribute to, or limit artistic creativity?

GARDEN HONG KONG

On-site exhibition

GARDEN HONG KONG at Osage Gallery is a one-week finissage art show of Ars Electronica 2021 Garden Hong Kong. Introducing Artificial Intentionalities, the Garden statement reads “Ars Electronica Garden Hong Kong’s curatorial inquiry explores various paths to better understand the entanglements that surface in the tectonic interplay of divergent worlds, where robots challenge social models, artworks try to understand each other, and the faraway meets the nearby.”

Credits

Hosted by (Initiated & Produced by): Neuro Design Lab/ Centre for Applied Computing and Interactive Media, City University of Hong Kong
Sponsored by: Osage Art Foundation, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, Focal-Naim