[spectre] INVITATION: THE WORLD WITHOUT US curated by Inke Arns in Ljubljana

Wed Jun 21 14:53:05 CEST 2017

 Aksioma - Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, is proud to invite
you to the event:

*The World Without Us: Narratives on the age of non-human actors*
*Group exhibition*
*Curated by: Inke Arns (HMKV)*

* Vžigalica Gallery | Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana*
Trg francoske revolucije, Ljubljana

*Opening:* Tuesday, 27 June 2017 at 8 pm
*Open through:* 27 August 2017
aksioma.org/twwu

*Participating artists:* Morehshin Allahyari & Daniel Rourke, Timo Arnall,
Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Ignas Krunglevicius, Mark Leckey, Nicolas Maigret &
Maria Roszkowska, Eva & Franco Mattes, Yuri Pattison, Sascha Pohflepp,
Suzanne Treister, Addie Wagenknecht, Pinar Yoldas.

* *---

*From alien matter to The World Without Us*
*Curator talk*

*City Museum of Ljubljana*
Gosposka ulica 15, Ljubljana

Tuesday, 27 June 2017 at 7 pm

The exhibition asks what a world without us would be like. But rather than
conjuring up a postdisaster scenario, it describes such a world as the
result of a gradual development whose origins can be traced back to our day
and age. Taking its cues from science-fiction literature and the
philosophical school of Speculative Realism, the exhibition largely relies
on the principle of extrapolation.

The tools for the creation of a “world without us” are at hand. The first
driverless cars are driving on our streets, news articles are compiled by
algorithms, and translations are done by machines. Already in 2009 a third
of all shares in the EU and the US were traded by algorithms. We can only
speculate on the current proportion.

In a “world without us” humans will be replaced by machines, artificial
intelligences will be optimized by other AIs and algorithms will be
programmed by other self-learning algorithms. In this way, a radically
different, post-anthropocentric world could emerge in which non-human life
forms could eventually prove better able to adapt than man himself.
Benjamin Bratton said of such a world in 2014: “Worse than being seen as
the enemy (by AI) is not being seen at all.”

The increasing influence of non-human actors in our everyday life has not
only been explored by several recent blockbusters, including Her (2013),
and in TV series such as Black Mirror (2011) and Real Humans (2012), but
also in contemporary (media) art. Loosely inspired by Timothy Morton’s book
Ecology Without Nature, the artists in this exhibition explore the
possibility of an ecology after man – an age of the post-Anthropocene, in
which other “life” forms, such as algorithms, artificial intelligence,
artificially created nanoparticles, genetically modified micro-organisms
and seemingly monstrous plants, have taken control. This new era, which has
already begun, albeit imperceptibly, is the age of non-human actors.

The World Without Us was originally produced and presented by HMKV in
Dortmund, Germany in 2016. For the 2017 Ljubljana version a selection of
the Dortmund show was made and some works of the exhibition alien matter
(curated by Inke Arns for the transmediale festival, HKW, 2017) were added
to The World Without Us. The exhibition will move to Rijeka (Mali Salom /
MMSU) at the end of the summer as a part of the project State Machines -
Art, Work, and Identity in an Age of Planetary-Scale Computation.

*Side programme:*

*       Adam Harvey: Privacy Gift Shop*        Solo exhibition
       Aksioma Project Space, Komenskega 18, Ljubljana
       21 June – 21 July 2017
       http://aksioma.org/privacy.gift.shop/

      *Maja Smrekar:* * Requiem for the Future*
      Hybrid performance
      Ljubljana Puppet Theatre, Krekov trg 2, Ljubljana
      5, 7, 8 July 2017 at 9 pm
      *Production:* Ljubljana Puppet Theatre and Aksioma
      http://aksioma.org/requiem/index.html

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*Produced by:* HMKV (Hartware MedienKunstVerein), www.hmkv.de
and Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, www.aksioma.org

* Co-production:* Museum & Galleries of Ljubljana and Drugo more, Rijeka

Head of production: Janez Janša
Producers: Marcela Okretič, Jani Pirnat
Executive producer: Sonja Grdina
Public relations: Alja Žorž, Janja Buzečan

*Media sponsor*: Radio Študent

The World Without Us in Ljubljana and Rijeka is realised in the framework
of the project *State Machines, a joint project by Aksioma (SI), Drugo more
(HR), Furtherfield (UK), the Institute of *Network Cultures (NL) and NeMe
(CY).

*Supported by*: the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, the
Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, Municipality of Ljubljana,
Kultura nova and the Department of Culture of City of Rijeka.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the
Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the
information contained therein.

* Contact:*
Marcela Okretič, 00386-(0)41 250830, marcela at aksioma.org
Aksioma | Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana
Komenskega 18, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
www.aksioma.org
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