Survival of the Fittest

The international group exhibition at the Kunstpalais Erlangen presents 10 works of photography, video, performance, virtual and augmented reality, sculptures and installations which explore the role technology, e.g. artificial intelligence, block chain, Big Data and bioengineering – can play in mitigating the risks and challenges posed by climate change and the destruction of our environment. Optimists point to technological innovations as a key to saving the environment, while critics portray such hopes as generally naive. The exhibition aims to show how the complex relationship of nature and high-tech is reflected in contemporary visual art. From deconstructive-critical positions to optimistic, future perspectives to fantastic visions of a renewable nature, the exhibition examines how our relationship to the environment can be shaped in the future. In Hito Steyerl’s installation “This is the Future”, for example, she offers a critical view of AI and deconstructs the hope that AI will someday be able to predict the future. In a performative, utopian training camp, the Dutch artist Jonas Staal invites the public to participate in scenarios which reclaim our future. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg presents an immersive installation based on scientific research which allows one to smell flowers which have already gone extinct.

The extensive accompanying programme includes an interdisciplinary conference, at which participants will discuss and weigh the benefits of taking technological and political countermeasures to avert an imminent catastrophic scenario.

Artistic director: Milena Mercer
Artists: Christina Agapakis & Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg & Sissel Tolaas, Tega Brain & Julian Oliver & Bengt Sjölen, James Bridle, Simon Denny, Anna Dumitriu & Alex May, Futurefarmers, Páll Ragnar Pálsson & Andreas Greiner, Paul Seidler & Paul Kolling & Max Hampshire, Jonas Staal, Pinar Yoldas