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.
DïaloG, MoBen & Refik Anadol (2021): AI, interaction, behavioral design, generative graphics. DïaloG talks about immigration and alienation: What is it like to be a stranger? How do we learn to understand each other? 360 videos reveal the first encounter of two virtual aliens conceived by two artists, interacting with one another and the public.
Power Chess, MoBen (2021): Robotic arms, behavioral and sound design. Two robots try to figure out the logic that drives societal contentions. Leveraging the rules of chess as metaphor, strategic variants are tested to surface how forces of domination lead to systematic subjugation. Produced by the Neuro Design Lab, and commissioned by Focal-Naim, Power Chess is a collaboration with Ray LC, Vvzela Kook, and PerMagnus Lindborg.
Value of Values, MoBen, Nicolás Mendoza and Tobias Klein (2019-2021):Engaging BCI, EEG, real-time graphics, HuGAN, the blockchain and NFTs, VoV helps participants give shape to human values that are then converted to NFT tokens registered to the blockchain. VoVs can be collected, bartered and traded, generating transactional poetry. We can now see the values ranking on the market, speculate on their evolution, and observe how cultures affect the financial appreciation of human values.
The Exhibition is accessible on Garden HK Websiteduring festival period and beyond (hkgardens.com)
Video
Maurice Benayoun (HK/FR): Maurice Benayoun is a media art pioneer, theorist, curator, and professor based in Hong Kong and Paris, whose accolades include the Ars Electronica Golden Nica and the SIGGRAPH Award, amongst others. Moving freely between media boundaries, from virtual reality to large-scale public art installations, and from BCI to the blockchain, Benayoun has exhibited across major international museums in about 30 countries. His recent research focuses on urban media art, critical fusion, behavioural design, the blockchain, transactional art, BCI driven neuro-design, and the morphogenesis of human values. www.moben.art
Refik Anadol (US): Refik Anadol is a media artist, director and pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence. His body of work locates creativity at the intersection of humans and machines. In taking the data that flows around us as his primary material and the neural network of a computerized mind as a collaborator, Anadol paints with a thinking brush, offering us radical visualizations of our digitized memories and expanding the possibilities of architecture, narrative, and the body in motion. Anadol’s site-specific AI data sculptures, live audio/visual performances, and immersive installations take many forms, encouraging us to rethink our engagement with the physical world, its temporal and spatial dimensions, and the creative potential of machines. https://refikanadolstudio.com/
Nicolás Mendoza (CO): Nicolás Mendoza is a Colombian multidisciplinary scholar, architect, artist, researcher and investor. His PhD research explored structures that support the emergence of non-state currencies, such as blockchain technology, from an anthropological perspective. His research engagement with Bitcoin, and therefore with blockchain technology, began as early as 2010, serving in the editorial board of Bitcoin Magazine, and co-editing the issue on P2P Currency of the Journal of Peer Production in 2013. His writings have been published in platforms such as Radical Philosophy and Al-Jazeera.
Tobias Klein (HK/DE): Tobias Klein (簡鳴謙) is a German artist and architect. His work articulates a syncretism of contemporary CAD/CAM technologies with cultural narratives, intuitive non-linear processes and historical references, establishing the practice of Digital Craftsmanship as an operational synthesis between digital and physical materials, methods and tools as poetic (poïesis) and technical (technê) expressions. He is an associate Professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. www.kleintobias.comCredits
Power Chess Sound Design: Vvzela Kook, Permagnus Lindborg
Power Chess Behavioral Design: Ray LC
Power Chess commissioned by: Focal-Naim
