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Oscar Santillán, Treelemma, Screenshot, Courtesy of the artist, 2023
Oscar Santillán Treelemma 2022-24 Satellite data, real time generative code, 4K video projection (no sound), and LCD screen. Developed by Cryptical LAB in collaboration with the following colleagues: René Martínez (UX design) | Tuan Perera (coding) | Ellie Young (community building) | Agustin Dondo (blockchain programming) | Wilbert Vogel (GPT3 formation) | Christine Hvidt (web design) Welcoming us to this exhibition is Treelemma, an installation that blends artificial intelligence with ecology to mirror ecological devastation in real time. When satellites detect a forest fire, the Treelemma AI system instantaneously generates a poem for the dying forest. These poems are translated into digital animations, projected on a screen as a continuous narrative of environmental loss. Each new poem marks a distinct fire event, memorialized alongside its location and date on a small LCD screen next to the projection. Treelemma functions as a poignant chronicle of our climate challenges, offering an imaginative viewpoint free from over-moralizing, and advocating for an inclusive ecological framework that seamlessly melds “natural" and “artificial” realms in a perpetual dance of begetting and burning.
Oscar Santillán is an artist and the founder of studio ANTIMUNDO, based between Amsterdam and Quito. His practice emerges precisely from the concept of “Antimundo,” a cybernetic matrix where science, fiction, and non-human perspectives converge. Oscar received an MFA in 2011 from the Sculpture Department at Virginia Commonwealth University (USA). He has been a senior researcher at the Davis Center for AI (USA), a researcher at NIAS (NL), and is currently an advisor at De Ateliers Amsterdam (NL). The artist has been a resident at institutions such as Jan van Eyck (NL), Fondazione Ratti (IT), Delfina Foundation (GB), the Astronomical Observatory of Leiden (NL), and Skowhegan (USA). His solo exhibitions include MUAC (MX), Kunstinstituut Melly (NL), Radius CCA (NL), Copperfield (GB), among others. And his group exhibitions include institutions such as LACMA (USA), Yokohama Triennial (JP), NRW FORUM Düsseldorf (DE), SongEun Art Space (KR), MacAlline Art Center (CN), Irish Museum of Modern Art (IE), among others. Artist website:https://antimundo.org/works
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Luo Jr-Shin Can sludge hold the memories of its passage, if stones can capture the echoes of their fractures? Installation detail, photo by Wu Chi-Yu, 2024
Luo Jr-Shin Can Sludge Hold the Memories of Its Passage, If Stones Can Capture the Echoes of Their Fractures? 2024 Fired sewage sludge is applied to a tunnel-like structure made of plywood, hardware, plaster, wire mesh, gauze, and various objects (with added quality improvers: oyster shell powder, volcanic clay, and plant ash). Structural Design: Hsu Wen Ching
Born in Miaoli, Taiwan, Luo Jr-Shin lives and works in Taipei. His artistic practice revolves around experimenting with various traditional and non-typical materials, including clay, resin, metal, everyday objects, food, chemical materials, and scents, to explore the spirituality and human condition inherent in the representation of the world. He focuses on the cognitive experiences derived from production frameworks and models, excelling at capturing unstable, illusory, or even delusional moments in everyday life. Luo has been exhibiting in many international institutions, included New Taipei City Art Museum, New Taipei (2024); Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei (2021); Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool (2021); National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (2020); Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, Taipei (2019); Taipei Contemporary Art Center, Taipei (2018); Asia Culture Center, Gwangju (2017); Times Museum, Guangzhou (2017); Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei (2014); and Queens Museum, New York (2013). Artist website:https://www.luojrshin.com/
Huang Ding Yun, Henry Tan Sleep is a Little Death, Rest is a Little Growth Installation detail, photo by Wu Chi-Yu, 2024
Huang Ding Yun, Henry Tan Sleep is a Little Death, Rest is a Little Growth 2024 Interactive wearable sculpture made of printed, woven, knitted fabrics, breath and temperature sensors, LED lights, speaker Designer: Kookped Studio Engineer and Developer: Tanis Phongpisantham
Inspired by the role of fungi in the natural world as converters of life and death and communicators, Sleep is a Little Death, Rest is a Little Growth delves into the intriguing states of death, sleep, and rest. The artists investigate how animals in hibernation maintain silent connections and networks within nature, inviting the audience to engage in performative rest practices in the gallery space. Individuals are invited to put on wearable sensory sculptures, fashioned to resemble dead wood and mycelium. This immersive experience allows participants to embody alternative physical postures and extend sensory perceptions, to ultimately tune their minds and bodies to various abstract cues.
Huang Ding Yun Based in Taipei, Huang Ding-Yun is an artist, playwright, theater practitioner, and dramaturg, and one of the co-founders of the Taipei-based multi-creator collective, Co-Coism. Co-Coism focuses on collective work and site-responsive, interdisciplinary practices. They have received support and commissions from institutions such as the National Theater and Concert Hall (Taiwan), Taipei Performing Arts Center, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, MOCA Taipei, the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, and the Shihsanhang Museum of Archaeology. He has also been invited as a residency artist, facilitator, and guest curator at Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Belgium), Gorki Theater Herbstsalon (Berlin), ADAM—Asia Discover Asia Meetings (Taipei), Dance Nucleus (Singapore), Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Melbourne), and Liveworks Experimental Arts Festival (Sydney). Henry Tan Henry Tan is an artist based in Bangkok, member of FREAK Lab Thailand and metaPhorest Japan, and research fellow at CGSB, NYUAD. Tan explores the boundaries between life and simulation. He investigates how emerging technologies like synthetic biology, mixed reality, brain stimulation, and artificial intelligence blur the lines between the real and the simulated. His work delves into how life adapts and negotiates with a constantly changing environment, shaped by factors like climate change, geopolitics, and geoeconomics. His works are often site-specific and contextually driven, with flexible use of materials. His latest series of works explores how human memory and consciousness are transformed in future cyborg laboratories through the senses of touch and smell. His recent research focuses on sleep as a prism to understand and investigate life, society, culture, and technology. His recent projects include 24hrs Sleep Experiment: Hibernation into the Mycelium World (2023), The Lantern (2023), Semi-conductor Dream (2023), and Young Eel (2019). He participated in the artist-in-residency at The Sociability of Sleeps (2021-2023). Artist website:https://www.henryandpartners.com/
Nicole L’Huillier
La Orejona (XS)
Photo by Juan Necochea, 2023
Nicole L’Huillier Nicole L’Huillier is a transdisciplinary artist and researcher from Santiago, Chile. Her practice centers on exploring sounds and vibrations as construction materials to delve into questions of agency, identity, collectivity, and the activation of a vibrational imagination. Her work materializes through installations, sonic/vibrational sculptures, custom-made (listening and/or sounding) apparatuses, performances, experimental compositions, membranal poems, and writing. She holds a Ph.D. in Media Arts & Sciences from MIT (2022). Her work has been shown at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (2024), Kunsthalle Bern (2024), Ming Contemporary Art Museum (McaM), Shanghai (2023), ifa-Gallery Stuttgart (2023), Bienal de Artes Mediales Santiago (2023, 2021, 2019, 2017), Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2022), Transmediale, Berlin (2022), Ars Electronica, Linz (2022, 2019, 2018), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC), Santiago de Chile (2022), 6th Ural Industrial Biennale, Ekaterinburg (2021), and 16th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (2018), among others. Artist website:https://nicolelhuillier.com/
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Tania Candiani
Tidal Choreography
Video still, Courtesy of the artist. 2023
Tania Candiani Tidal Choreography 2023 Two-channel video installation, stereo sound. 24’ 20’’
Film Crew: Steve Hall, Shane Joyce, Wojciech Kwiatkowski, Shane Serrano.
Editing: Ollin Miranda.
Audio Recording: Mícheál Keating, Caimin Walsh.
Music: Pól an Eas
Played by Diarmuid O’brien- Plassey Air Written and Played by Padraig O’donoghue
Voiceover Joanne Ryan
Irish Language Consultant Manchán Magan
Performer: Jean Mcglynn
Swimmers: Amy Adams, Elaine Buckley, Noelle Cox, Nuala Culhane, Ronan Culhane, Theresa Culhane, Maura Cullinane, John Egan, Juliette Egan, Victoria Egan, Agnes Fitzgerald, Carmel Fitzgerald, Marie Fitzgerald, Nora Fitzgerald, Norma Harnedy, Ailbhe Healy, Eileen Healy Mulvihill, Fergus Healy, Rachel Healy, Siobhán Healy, Conor Henderson, Grace Holly, Bernadette Kelleher, Aisling Kennedy, Mai Kennedy, Úna Kennedy, Aoife Norah Lyons, Máire Lyons, Betty-ann Mcsweeney, Tríona Mulcahy, Caoimhe Mulroe, Sinéad Mulroe, Geraldine Mulvihill, Thomas Mulvihill, Eva O’connor, Pat O’connor, Sarah O’connor, Maria O’mahony, Owen O’shaughnessy, Helen O’sullivan, Sarah Prendiville, Ann Riordan, Alan Ruttle, Lisa Ruttle, Geraldine Shine, Kate Sweeney, Siobhán Sweeney, Ann Wallace, Edel Wallace, Jennifer Woods.
Acknowledgements Conway’s, Glin Community News, Glin Development Association, Glin Men’s Shed, Glin Tidy Towns, O’shaughnessy’s, out and about in Beautiful Glin, the Community of Glin.
Inspired by the rhythmic pulse of Glin village and the tidal rhythms of the nearby Shannon Estuary, Tania Candiani immerses herself in the daily ritual of local swimmers, who journey to the water at high tide. "Tidal Choreography" intricately weaves together aerial and underwater footage, capturing moments at both high and low tide, alongside field recordings and traditional Irish melodies. Collaborating with local artists, the project integrates music, spoken word, and physical performance. Culminating in a poignant finale, the artist is joined by over fifty swimmers from the community, enriching the film with diverse perspectives and experiences. This multifaceted approach reveals intricate patterns, shifts in perspective, and insights into the ecological tapestry of Glin and its tidal landscape.
Tania Candiani lives and works in Mexico City, focusing on the expanded idea of translation through visual, sound, textual, and symbolic languages. Her projects explore sound and the politics of listening as tools for transforming perceptions. Feminist policies and practices, viewed as communal and ritual experiences, are central to her work. She collaborates across disciplines, integrating art, literature, music, architecture, science, and labor, with a focus on ancestral knowledge and techniques. Candiani is a member of Mexico’s National System of Art Creators and has received the Guggenheim Fellowship and Smithsonian Institution Research Grant. She was an artist-in-residence at Arts at CERN in Geneva and represented Mexico at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015). Her work is exhibited internationally and featured in major collections.
Artist website:https://taniacandiani.com/en/
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Wu Chi-Yu
Stories of Celluloid: Terra Nullius Data
Video still, Courtesy of the artist. 2024
Wu Chi-Yu Stories of Celluloid: Terra Nullius Data 2024 Single-channel video installation, 12'30" and archive Director: Wu Chi-Yu Cinematographer: Po-Yen Hsu Cinematographer: Johan Chang Producer: Zhou Xin GVFX: Fan Cheuk Hang Music: Zi-Ming Feng Special Thanks: Chee Yen Camphor Essential Oil Factory
Stories of Celluloid: Terra Nullius Data is an essay film in four chapters that explores the evolving relationship between media history, technology, and the natural world in the age of AI image generation. This chapter, Terra Nullius Data, expresses the lost nostalgia and connection for the natural environment from a digitally native perspective. In the 20th century during the Japanese colonial period, Taiwan's camphor tree industry thrived as camphor was an essential ingredient in celluloid which was used to make film. Once synthetic camphor was invented, demand for the raw material and thus the camphor forestry industry both declined. Today's media development trends are transitioning from analog to digital and further propelled by AI technology. When looking back raises the question: where will our relationship with nature be headed next? This project examines the intricate connection between Taiwan's forests and international media theory. The Mountain Algorithms exhibition debuts this one chapter from Stories of Celluloid and several accompanying archival documents, demonstrating the generative digital forest and the data dynamics behind the imagery.
Wu Chi-Yu Currently based in Taipei, Wu Chi-Yu’s work is concerned with finding ways to rebuild the connections between humans, objects, animals, and the world amidst the ruins caused by technocapitalism. Primarily focusing on moving images, Wu reworks oral histories, legends, and archives, seeking contemporary narrative forms for fading memories. He also explores various collaborative projects, including installations, video installations, and performances with different researchers and partners. Recent solo exhibitions include “Streaming Colony: Nesting Terrariums” (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, 2023) and "Atlas of the Closed Worlds" (Cube Project Space, Taipei, Taiwan, 2021). Notable group exhibitions include "Liquid Love" (Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan, 2020), "Shanghai Biennale: Proregress" (Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China, 2018), "Trans-Justice: Para-Colonial@Technology" (Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan, 2018), "Crush" (Para Site, Hong Kong, 2018), and the Taipei Biennial (Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, 2016). Wu has participated in the artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie (Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2014–2015). Artist website:https://www.wuchiyu.com/
Chitti Kasemkitvatana
Kala Ensemble
Video still, Courtesy of the artist, 2024
Chitti Kasemkitvatana Kala Ensemble 2024 Multimedia installation with two-channel video installation, bamboo sculpture and wall text “The universe is not locally real” in Chinese, English and Thai The video work is developed from Kala Ensemble : ร้อยกรองกาล, commissioned by Thailand Biennale Chiang Rai, 2023. Kala Ensemble (2024) is kindly supported by Gallery VER, Bangkok. “The Universe Is Not Locally Real” is the heading of the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize Winners report on www.scientificamerican.com. The Thai translation is taken from Sophia Publishing. Production Point-cloud animation : ddmy studio Bamboo sculpture : Bhirawut Mudmai Wall text graphics : Natthorn Tansurat
Driven by an enduring curiosity about the nature of space, time, and matter in the universe,Chitti Kasemkitvatana investigates these mysteries through the lenses of philosophy, Buddhism, astronomy, and physics, responding with a fluid artistic language. The video depicts various ancient deities of time from different civilizations in northern Thailand, India, China, and Tibet, symbolizing the cyclical nature of time through a process of particle transformation. Traditional bamboo sculptures from the highlands of northern Thailand represent spatial forms. Meanwhile, recent breakthroughs in quantum physics are conveyed textually, illustrating how matter lacks specific properties until observed. This multimedia installation elegantly presents a unique perspective on “spacetimemattering”, suggesting the observable universe can reveal itself to us at our situated moment.
Chitti Kasemkitvatana Chitti Kasemkitvatana is a Bangkok based artist, independent curator and educator. His methodology relies on research-based art practice that relates to the use of archival fragments and spatial practice. Applying the new materialist lens, he focuses on entangled ideas in sociocultural history, especially on the moment in which various spheres become “porous”. His artistic operation involves transmission of collective memories via object-device and conversion of data that entails an active process of construction of time in the society. It is to study the convergence of things - in the form of conversation, collision, as well as diffraction. His work has been shown in national and international institutions such as The Art Centre Silpakorn University, Bangkok; Futura Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague; Centre Pompidou, Paris; daadgalerie, Berlin; CEAAC, Strasbourg; Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou; Le Plateau, Paris; Art in General, New York; Succession, Vienna; CAPC, Bordeaux and PS1, New York. Recent exhibitions include The Spirits of Maritime Crossing, a collateral event of 60th La Biennale di Venezia (Palazzo Smith Mangilli Valmarana, 2024); Thailand Biennale, Chiang Rai (Wat Pa Sak and National Museum Chiang Saen, 2023); Bangkok Art Biennale (The Prelude : One Bangkok, 2022), The Tenebrous Spiral Staircase of the - (Gallery VER, 2021) and Stories We Tell To Scare Ourselves With (MOCA Taipei, 2019). Artist website:https://kasemkitvatana.tumblr.com/
Rngrang Hungul
The Woman Carrying the Prey
Rngrang Hungul The Woman Carrying the Prey 2023 Documentary, Single channel video, 69’ Text, Messages woven from the film The Woman Carrying the Prey Posak Jodian 2023
In this documentary, the director Rngrang Hungul tells the story of her mother, Heydi Mijung, the only female hunter in the Truku tribe. Heydi defies traditional gender norms while adhering to the ancestral teachings of Gaya. She embodies a rich repository of indigenous hunting culture and ecological knowledge. Her hunter's role extends beyond catching animals to feed the family; Heydi is also a meticulous observer and guardian. Her life story is intricately connected to her family's hunting ground, preserving the life rhythms and natural knowledge of various plants and animals in the surrounding mountain area in Hualien. Her movements and footprints unfold much of the reciprocal wisdom of symbiosis culture.
Rngrang Hungul Rngrang Hungul was born as a Truku member in Hualien, Taiwan. She graduated from the Department of Indigenous Language and Communication at National Dong Hwa University. Her work, rooted in long-term visual fieldwork, addresses contemporary issues facing indigenous people. She transforms daily and personal tribal experiences into creative elements from a woman’s perspective, exploring the reconnection with traditional culture in modern society. Hungul extended her “Female Hunter '' series, including works such as I Am a Woman, and Also a Hunter: Notes Version, and The People of the Mountains, and produced the documentary The Woman Carrying the Prey. In 2022, she won the New Horizon Award’s first prize and received accolades at the Hualien Film Awards. She also won the Visual Arts First Prize at the 2023 Pulima Art Award. Artist website:https://rngranghungul.wordpress.com
Patricia Domínguez
Matrix Vegetal
Installation view, photo by Wu Chi-Yu, 2024
Patricia Domínguez Matrix Vegetal 2021–22 Multimedia Installation with 4K video, 21'12'' Video commissioned by Screen City Biennial and Cecilia Brunson Projects Local Light Engineer: Taiwan Genlight Electro Optical Co. LTD Local Bamboo Structure: Chun-Po Chang Production Team Film written, directed and edited by Patricia Domínguez. Camera and direction of photography: Emilia Martín Assistant camerawoman and sound recording: Ce Pams Music: Futuro Fósil Microscope images by Ce Pams and Patricia Domínguez at Fernán Federici’s Lab. Actress: Claudia Blin and Pedrito the bird Design and realization of green shield: Taller Dínamo Design and 3D animation: Alvaro Muñoz and Valentina Maldonado Post Production Thomas Woodroffe VFX Animations Thomas Woodroffe and Simón Jarpa
Matrix Vegetal is a botanical science fiction video installation that aims to reconnect communication with the more-than-human world, presenting visions and wisdom from the plant universe. Combining experimental ethnobotany, South American quantum philosophy, and organic technologies, it challenges perception and explores plant and spiritual realms. Patricia Domínguez draws from her apprenticeship with Amador Aniceto, a revered healer in Peru, known as the "General Physician of the Flora and Fauna of the Universe." Inspired by his mystical insights, she embarked on a journey to disconnect from the digital realm and connect with the vegetal matrix. This installation poetically reveals our interconnectedness with planetary consciousness and non-human languages. For this edition of Matrix Vegetal, the artist created a dreaming station where visitors can lie down to receive the guidance of Brugmansia flowers, or Angel Trumpets, which are part of the nightshade family Solanaceae, and known for their powers to drive dreams.
Patricia Domínguez Patricia Domínguez was born in Santiago, Chile, and lives and works in Puchuncaví, Chile. Through a wide variety of media, Domínguez draws upon myths, symbols, rituals, and healing practices, combining artistic imagination with experimental research on ethnobotany. Her multi-layered artistic approach is informed by the wide scope of her education and research; her MFA from Hunter College, New York, is supplemented by a Botanical Illustration Certificate from the New York Botanical Garden, a residency at CERN to learn about quantum physics, non-locality, and entanglement, and time spent in Peru learning from a plant healer and researching beliefs around interconnectivity and multi-species spirit in the plant world. Domínguez is also the founder of Studio Vegetalista, an experimental platform for ethnobotanical research based in Chile. Recent exhibitions include Screen Series, New Museum, New York (2022), Rooted Beings, Wellcome Collection, London (2022), 2022 Screen City Biennial, Berlin, and the 2021 Gwangju Biennale. She was awarded the Simetría Residency Award by CERN in 2020 and Beca Botín in 2022. Artist website:https://www.patriciadominguez.cl
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Angela Su
Cosmic Call
Video still, 2019
Courtesy of Blindspot Gallery and the artist. Photo by Cheung Chi Wai
Angela Su Cosmic Call 2019 Single-channel video installation, 12' 43" Cosmic Call is commissioned by Wellcome Trust. Angela Su’s True Calling 2019 Single-channel video, 5' 03"
Having long explored issues of body politics, examining the impact and inspiration of scientific and technological advancements on human culture, Su’s work Cosmic Call focuses on the origins and truths of disease outbreaks, set against the backdrop of Hong Kong's epidemic histories. Through a science fiction narrative aesthetic, the work explores astronomy, medical advancements, and historical documents, incorporating traditional Chinese medicine discourse and ancient cosmological theories to establish a different epistemology of epidemic. This approach reveals multiple belief systems beyond mainstream Western medical narratives. In the video’s conclusion, the artist performs a ritual, injecting herself with different viruses, symbolizing a return of critical inquiry to bodily practice and awakening the connection between our bodies and the universe.
Angela Su Angela Su lives and works in Hong Kong. Su’s works investigate the perception and imagery of the body, through metamorphosis, hybridity and transformation. Her research-based projects materialize in drawing, video, hair embroidery, performative and installation works. Central to these projects are video essays and texts where she embodies different alter-egos, weaving together fiction and facts, reality and fantasy. Frequently reimagining and metamorphosing the female mind and body to create sites of resistance against the injustices in our social system, Su pushes the capacity of bodies to withstand violence and bear pain, to be possessed and taken over, and thus to transform and bear witness. With a focus on the history of medical science, her works question the dominant biomedical discourse whilst toying with speculative and outdated medical narratives, contemplating the impact of science and technology on the past, present and future. In 2022, Su presented Angela Su: Arise, Hong Kong in Venice at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, commissioned by M+ and HKADC. In 2019, Su was commissioned by Wellcome Trust to present a new project in Contagious Cities: Far Away, Too Close at Tai Kwun, Hong Kong. She has also participated in exhibitions in museums and institutions internationally, including Levyhalli (Suomenlinna, Helsinki, 2021); Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City, 2020); The Drawing Center (New York City, 2020); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing, 2020). In 2013, she published an artist novel Berty, and, in 2017, a science fiction anthology Dark Fluid, where she uses science fiction as a tool for social justice.
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Fernanda Barreto
Meters
Details, Courtesy of the artist, 2019
Fernanda Barreto Meters 2019 Embroidery on fabrics, lead, wood
The artist developed this series of work from an extensive study of atmospheric movements, exploring the relationship between human life, civilization, and climate. This set of fabric flags is embroidered with intricate weather forecast symbols and fishing gear weights. These universal patterns representing recurring patterns in air currents, weather fronts, and other meteorological phenomena shape our thoughts and perceptions about climate change in our everyday lives. The origin of the hurricane pattern dates back to pre-Hispanic times when it symbolized the deity in Caribbean culture. The exhibition opens with this set of observational instruments used to forecast upcoming weather.
Fernanda Barreto Born in São Paulo and living in Mexico City, Barreto is an artist, translator, and cultural manager focusing on critical, collective, and social practices. Her research centers on the wind, creating devices that connect the body with this phenomenon. Barreto holds a Master’s in Visual Arts with a focus on art and environment from FAD, UNAM, and is pursuing a PhD there. She has worked with the Centro de Investigaciones Artísticas in Buenos Aires and attended SOMA's Educational Program (2014-16). She curated the Second Biennial of Arts and Design at UNAM ("Pedir lo Imposible," 2020) and is part of the Network of Empathic Pedagogies in Latin America. Her awards include the Jumex Foundation sponsorship (2024) and the Adidas Border Scholarship (2015). Her work has been shown in various countries. Artist website:http://fernandabarreto.com
Ya-Chu Kang
Blue Healing
Ya-Chu Kang Blue Healing 2014 Cotton fabric, cyanotype, cotton thread, wool, marine debris, bamboo, yarn
Kites in the shape of manta rays soar in the air, drawing the viewers' attention both to the sky and the ocean. The artist employs cyanotype exposure techniques and the energy of sunlight to transfer the silhouettes of collected marine debris, plastic fragments, and biological remains onto the fabric of the kites. This work interprets a paradigm of collaboration between human technology and natural forces, vividly depicting the unique beachscapes of the Anthropocene. Through a collage of plastic waste, pollution, and images of death, Blue Healing provokes reflection on the nature of technology and the state of the marine environment.
Ya-Chu Kang Ya-Chu Kang was born and currently resides in Taipei, Taiwan. Her work encompasses various media, including sculpture, site-specific installations, environmental art, weaving, video, and painting. Kang employs field research to explore and reinterpret cultural and social phenomena with her speculative approach. Her explorations delve into textile culture, craftsmanship and labor, living conditions, migration history, economic trade, and social structures, reflecting on the impacts and changes modernization brings to tradition, culture, and the natural environment. In recent years, she has actively participated in major international exhibitions and biennales. Notable exhibitions include those at the Southbank Center in the UK, the Contemporary Textile Art Biennial in Portugal, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, the International Tapestry Triennial in Łódź, Poland, and the Nakanojo Biennale in Japan. She has received multiple international artist residency grants, including the 2008 Asian Cultural Council Grant, enabling her to conduct research in diverse cultural settings. Her works are collected by the Ministry of Culture's Art Bank in Taiwan and the Jyväskylä Art Museum in Finland. Artist website:https://yachukang.com/home.html
Rice Brewing Sisters Club,
Rice Brewing Sisters Production: Our Circulatory Alliances
Rice Brewing Sisters Club Rice Brewing Sisters Production: Our Circular Alliances 2024 Mixed media (rope, paper, screenprint on wall, wood panels) Single channel video, 50 sec, silent, loop Agarkit (displayed in the shop): agar-agar, gardenia, roselle, glycerin, sugar, dried pineapple, glass jar, paper, tin box) Agarkit conceived and designed by Rice Brewing Sisters Production & wingwing.home & haeminhae Agarkit produced by Esther Lu, Sophie Chen Video animated by KAY
English version of installation contents
This work proposes building a community with the ocean, exploring the alliance between–and the cycles of–ecology and economy. Using locally sourced agar seaweed from Taiwan as the raw material for a DIY bioplastic kit, the project invites participants to create fully plant-based, biodegradable plastic through contact with our skin, microbes, time, and the environment. In addition to making bioplastics for daily use, participants are also encouraged to use their own bodies as sites for decomposition and digestion, consuming and processing the material after use. The Rice Brewing Sisters Club art collective has long focused on ecological issues and community building, contemplating pathways for mutual transformation, dependence, and sustainability among different cross-species groups.
Rice Brewing Sisters Club Rice Brewing Sisters Club (RBSC; 2018-) is an artist collective established in 2018 around the members’ crossing interests in experimenting with the processes of “social fermentation” as an artistic form. With a participatory practice encompassing visual arts, performance, creative writing, oral history, ecological thinking, and auntie’s wisdom, RBSC seeks to create synergetic networks that provide economic and ecological visions for the future. Recent projects include Rice Brewing Sisters Production: About Us at Seoul Museum of Art (2023-4), Holobiont Galaxy at Project Hashtag 2023 of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul (2023-4), and Sea Plants, Bare Hands, Entangled Gaetbawi at Busan Biennale 2022 (2021-2).
Constanza Alarcón Tennen
Sudamericana Tiene Memoria del Aire
Constanza Alarcón Tennen Sudamericana Tiene Memoria del Aire (South American Plate Has a Memory of the Air) 2024 Digital HD Video (Stereo), 16’ 30’’ This project was made possible thanks to the support of CIICA UFRO and Centro NAVE. Stones collected by Hsin Pei-Chin from the fault line valley in Hualine Audiovisual production team: Pascual Mena, Thomas Woodroffe, Constanza Alarcón Tennen Choreographic Direction: Bárbara Pinto Gimeno Costumes: Mou Studio Performers: Daniella Santibañez, Ale Miller, Paulina Vielma, Barbara Pinto Gimeno, Constanza Alarcón Tennen Sound sculptures: Constanza Alarcón Tennen Musical composition: Constanza Alarcón Tennen Sound Post production: Michel Poblete and Constanza Alarcón Tennen
Sudamericana tiene memoria del aire explores a poetic narrative of tectonic plates through a non-scientific lens. Creatively reinterpreting geological concepts, this work reframes the relationship between the Nazca and Sudamericana plates as sensual and erotic, and positions earthquakes as symbols of tension and desire. This interactive work invites movement, touch, gestures, poses, and sounds, metaphorically depicting this geological interaction rather than simply scientifically illustrating such phenomena. This installation is the second chapter of the Nazca/Sudamericana trilogy, and Constanza Alarcón Tennen focuses on the South American plate, imagining it retaining memories of air due to its role in supporting the Andes Mountains. The video installation features dancers performing movement sequences, footage from various Andean sites, hand-shaped clay whistles, and an original sound composition.
Constanza Alarcón Tennen Constanza Alarcón Tennen is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works between Santiago and Boston. She is interested in transmaterial dialogues, while her work includes sound installations, videos, sculptures and performances, among other media. She graduated from a BFA at Universidad Católica de Chile and the MFA in Sculpture at Yale University in 2015. Her work has been shown internationally at video screenings, collective and solo exhibitions at venues such as PS122 (NY), Patricia Ready Gallery (Santiago), El Dorado (Bogotá), the XIII New Media Biennial (Chile), Atelierhaus Salzamt (Linz), Künstlerforum Bonn, among others. She has participated in residencies such as The Vermont Studio Center (VT), Delfina Foundation (London), B.A.S.E Tsonami (Valparaíso), and AIM at the Bronx Museum (NY). Besides her artistic practice, Constanza is a teacher. She not-so-recently published her first poetry compilation as an artist's book with Otra Sinceridad independent press. Artist website:https://www.alarcon-tennen.com/
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Every Stitch of the Needle
Video still, Courtesy of the artist. 2021
Fernanda Barreto Every Stitch of the Needle 2022 Fabrics Fernanda Barreto and Dan Sánchez D. Vil Panza Llena de Sonajas (A Bellyful of Rattles) 2024 Single-channel HD video (sound), 12’ 34’’ Performers: Hsinyi Lin, Ting Kuan Zhao Producers: Chia-Ling Chu, Sophie Chen
This work expresses the ever-changing tension in the interplay between the human body and the surrounding atmosphere. The artist wears a custom-made costume designed to fully capture the wind’s force, experimenting with its language and translation under various conditions. This costume envelops and deforms the body, allowing it to move with the wind. In this state, the body does not balance on a single axis but rather navigates in multiple directions, evolving into an abstract, multi-cellular organism. Appearing as a solo dance, the artist directs the viewer’s attention to various simultaneous environmental details.
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Su Yu Hsin
Particular waters
Su Yu Hsin Particular waters 2023 Single-channel video installation, HD color (sound), 18’ 38’’, loop 4 dummy wafers presented with 3D-printed holders, 30cm diameter, imprinted ocean satellite imagery, black and white Yellow translucent polycarbonate sheets with wood structure, dimension variable Spring of Chemistry 2023 Single-channel video, HD (no sound), black and white, 1’ 03’’, loop Hydrosocial Cycle of TSMC 2023/2024 Vinyl and digital print on adhesive transparent film, dimension variable
Taiwan's semiconductor industry, revered as the island’s "guardian mountain" by locals, has an immense yet little-known reliance on water resources. The production process of thin slices of silicon, known as wafers demands vast quantities of water whose required purity levels surpass those required for human consumption. Taiwan's unique environmental conditions and the impact of climate change actually introduce variables that may affect production stability even more than geopolitical factors. This intricate dynamic has sparked the interest of the artist who has been following hydrofeminist pathways. Through this narrative film, Su Yu Hsin explores TSMC's water network in the Hsinchu region, unraveling the layered and complex human geography intertwined with it. In her artful depiction, water emerges not merely as a physical resource but as a carrier of emotional memory and cultural significance.
Su Yu Hsin Su Yu Hsin is an artist and filmmaker based in Berlin. She approaches ecology from the point of view of its close relationship with technology. Her artistic practice is strongly research-oriented and involves fieldwork where she investigates the political ecologies of water. Her work reflects on technology and the critical infrastructure in which the human and non-human converge. Su received her diploma at Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig and was awarded the 26th Federal Award for Art Students in Germany. Her video installations are exhibited worldwide in museums and International Art Biennials: Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, the Centre Pompidou-Metz, the Museum of Contemporary Art Busan, Taipei Biennial 2020 and 2023, ZKM Karlsruhe, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, among others. Her films have been screened at the Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, and the Experimental Film and Video Festival in Seoul. Artist website:https://www.suyuhsin.net/
17
lololol
CultivatingSteps
lololo CultivatingSteps 2024 4K video, speakers
The artists chose the most enclosed staircase space in the exhibition for this site-specific sound installation, which aims to engage the audience in the repetitive act of going up and down the stairs, to inspire reflections on the simple act of stair climbing and the many metaphors that arise from this activity. Climbing stairs is a basic act of training in wushu culture, at the same time, from a computer science perspective, the action of climbing stairs is governed by the Fibonacci sequence. Guided by a deconstructed wushu soundscape inspired by the sequence of fibonacci, the artists seek to enrich the sensory attributes of the site and transform an ordinary activity into a conscious movement filled with introspection and meditation.
lololol lololol is a boundless laughter, an endless extension of lol (laugh out loud), an acronym that appears to be constructed by the building blocks of I-Ching and/or computer code. Founded by Xia Lin and Sheryl Cheung in 2013, the artist collective focuses on how emotions and body politics are informed by diverse technology cultures, with special interest in martial arts, materialist ontologies and Taoist-informed philosophies. “Future Tao '' is the group’s ongoing initiative to engage with Taoist mind and body practices as an alternative approach to technological exploration. lololol's work, performances and collaborative projects have been shown at Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival (UK), Taipei Arts Festival (TW), Times Museum (CN), Vernacular Institute (MX), Flaneur Festival (DE), Liquid Architecture (ASTL) and Contemporary at Blue Star (USA) amongst others. Artists website:lololol.net
18
Wang Yung-An
Skin Archaeology: Ghost Variables
Wang Yung-An Skin Archaeology: Ghost Variables 2024 Two-channel video installation, HD Color (Sound), 13’ 59’’ Director / Script / Choreography / Mind-Skin Code / Performance: Wang Yung-An Vice Director / Shooting: Dina Karaman Editing: Dina Karaman, Wang Yung-An Voices: Wang Yung-An, Eleven Multilingual v2 model Sound Mixing: Lu Chih Hao This film was inspired by the artist's neuroscientific research conducted in the Human Memory Lab at NCU and the Brain and Learning Lab at NYCU.
The artist raises a question: Does AI have skin? As the human body and the computational world become increasingly intertwined, how do we distinguish between personal perception and the blurred boundaries of collective data? Moreover, if human sensory experiences are not properly integrated or represented in the digital realm, they may lose their significance and be overlooked or left untranslated, becoming "ghost variables" in the computational world—forgotten and irrelevant. This term denotes elements in a program that have no computational function, vividly capturing the feedback sensation humans experience when communicating with computers. Drawing from neuroscience studies on touch, the artist utilizes neuroimaging from affective touch experiments and dance imagery to explore and depict the digitized states of the body and emotions in various human-machine interfaces.
Wang Yung-An Wang Yung-An holds a B.F.A. from the National Taiwan University of Arts and an M.S. from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at National Central University. Wang focuses her research on touch cognitive mechanisms while expanding her artistic approach through performance and visual language. With an emphasis on deducing inner-material dynamics beneath the skin, Wang has been developing a touch score/script system called “Mind-Skin Code.” This foundation enriches her investigation in biopolitics by reconfiguring body codes, boundaries, and interoceptive strategies of life under the dominance of visual culture, aiming to reweight the spaces between the human and the non-human. Her creative propositions question the haptics of seeing, as well as how skin can act as a thinking organ. Artist website:https://wangyungan.com/
19
Jason Wee
Quora Fora A Rehearsal, SingaporeBiennale 2019 Commission, Wild Rice Theatre.
Photo: Eileen Goh, 2019
Jason Wee Quora Fora A Rehearsal 2021-ongoing Printed fabric, sound installation and poetry book In Short, Future Now Composers: Li-Chuan Chong, Aran O’Grady, Khris Nung Design: Quck Zhong Yi Singers: Wilson Goh, Wei Yi, Ong Kok Leong, John Rae Cortes, Lim Ming Boon, Scoring The Word quartet.
In 2021, Singaporean artist Jason Wee published the science fiction poetry book In Short, Future Now, envisioning the future of Asian geopolitics in haiku form. This poem describes how the flooded Asian archipelago negotiates new pandemics and surveillance in a post-authoritarian era. The political metaphors within the poem are developed into a libretto for Quora Fora: A Rehearsal, an ongoing opera project with a musical arrangement that deliberately blurs the libretto. Audiences are left unsure whether the intense collective chorus represents exhausted homogeneity or a new form of authority. Exhibited alongside the opera are images and text on colorful banners, serving as archives of future Asia, and questioning the forms and symbolic meanings of democracy.
Jason Wee Lives and works in Singapore and New York. Jason Wee is an artist and a writer working between contemporary art, architecture, poetry, and photography. His art practice contends with sources of singular authority in favor of polyphony and difference. He transforms these histories and spaces into various visual and written materials, with particular attention to their idealisms and conundrums and their minor futures. He founded and runs Grey Projects, an artists’ space, library, and residency that focuses on curatorship, new writing, design propositions, and art. He has exhibited at the Chelsea Art Museum, Casino Luxembourg, Singapore Art Museum, ArtScience Museum, and the Singapore Biennale. Residencies include Artspace Sydney, Tokyo Wonder Site, and Gyeonggi Creation Center in Korea. He won the 2008 Young Artist Award for visual arts in Singapore and the 2009 Voters’ Prize from the Singapore Art Museum. Jason is the author of three poetry collections: The Monsters Between Us (2013) and An Epic of Durable Departures (2018), which was a Singapore Literature Prize finalist in 2020. His latest collection, In Short, Future Now (2020), was a finalist for the Gaudy Boy Poetry Prize. He curated Stories We Tell To Scare Ourselves With in MoCA Taipei (2019). Artist website:https://jasonwee.com
20
BreathCultivating
Installation view, Courtesy of the artist. Solid Art, 2021
lololol BreathCultivating 2021 4K video, monitor, exciter
The artists Xia Lin and Sheryl Cheung of lololol collected 66 distinct breathing sounds, transforming them into an encrypted file displayed on a motorized screen. This installation translates the frequency of breaths into electronic data and physical vibrations. Drawing from a diverse array of sources—humans, primates, computer simulations, and internet memes—the work expands our understanding of respiration and gaseous alchemy. Integrating their interest in Tai Chi, traditional Chinese medicine, and contemporary technology, the artists explore the practice of breath regulation as a means to connect digital and physical realms. This work seeks to harmonize and balance interactions between human and non-human entities, offering a meditative connection in everyday life.
The Mountain Algorithms Toward Metabolic Recovery for Generated Futures Curator | Esther Lu Is it possible for AI to think like a mountain? In recent years, the term "Anthropocene" has gained significant attention, highlighting the irreversible impact of human behavior on Earth's resources and biosphere. This era is characterized by an academic and imaginative discourse surrounding global warming and ecological crises, prompting a heightened focus on non-human existence amidst survival anxiety. As warnings about a potentially catastrophic future for human civilization grow, the rapid advancement of AI tools over the past two years has added to our collective unease and sense of ambiguity about our times. Can we still trust our perceptions? Will our existence ultimately be lived out materially or digitally? We find ourselves amid biodiversity collapse, living in a hyper-mediated reality where human fate becomes increasingly precarious, and individual existence is reduced to digital data points. In this context, how can we envision and practice "symbiosis"? Do our bodies and consciousness need to evolve, enabling us to reconceptualize progress through symbiotic cycles instead of a linear progressive historical view, learning to move both forward and backward? This project draws inspiration from James Lovelock's speculative vision in Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence. Lovelock predicts a future where AI cyborgs, destined to dominate Earth, choose to collaborate with humans to protect Gaia—Earth's holistic symbiotic system—ensuring the continuity of evolution and their own existence [1]. Even cyborgs are dependent on Gaia and are part of this symbiosis. The curatorial concept adopts this optimistic and fantastical foundation and integrates Aldo Leopold's perspective from A Sand County Almanac, advocating for "thinking like a mountain." Leopold suggests that only the mountain's enduring timescale can elucidate the interconnectedness of all life in nature, lamenting humanity's inability to comprehend the full significance of a wolf’s howl [2]. Here, the mountain symbolizes an expansive, almost eternal timescale that transcends anthropocentrism. It represents a boundless, ever-changing landscape that harbors energy, life, and wisdom. How can we broaden our perspectives to feel and approach the mountain's breath? How can we recognize its richness and mystery? This exhibition invites contemplation of these questions, seeking to harmonize the coexistence of human and non-human entities through artistic expression and ecological awareness. This is the underpinning conceptual framework of The Mountain Algorithms, an exhibition that attempts to unfold the physical dimensions of time and geography, juxtaposing the wisdom of nature with artificial intelligence to create several compasses for understanding future ecological thinking and practices. Rather than highlighting disaster scenarios or moralistic arguments, the exhibition endeavors to redefine “ecological art" by examining how we can enhance and expand our sensory awareness, create organic processes and cooperative uses between natural and artificial technologies, and place greater emphasis on spiritual and cultural ecological thinking. It also explores learning different rhythms and metabolic schemes, building ecological communities, cycles, and relationships, and how art can navigate the complex, unstable, and seemingly disintegrating network relationships to transform ecology into an alliance, a culture, and a force. Artists from Asia and Latin America propose various methodologies that lean towards ecofeminism—questioning the multiple domination of nature by anthropocentrism and capitalism. This deliberate sampling allows us to consciously reflect on the historical processes and environmental changes from various uneven decolonization contexts, presenting plural and diverse worldviews. The curatorial starting point of this project stems from my residency experience in the southern Andes of Chile two years ago. During that time, the only challenge greater than snow hiking was how to live for six weeks in a breathtaking mountainous landscape without internet access. My encounters with people, places, workshops, cultural shocks, and the experience of a temporary community allowed me to return to and be present in my physical body, in a completely unfamiliar environment. I began reevaluating my understanding of contemporary ecology. In the great mountains, individual life feels extremely fragile and light. I noted the tensions within the surrounding food chain, observed the clear interdependencies of symbiosis, parasitism, death, and regeneration. Experiencing these materially, emotionally, and spiritually intertwined relationships revealed the different hues and dimensions of this world to me. This heightened my sensitivity to my body, to internal and external information networks, and the landscape, making ecological texts that I had read in the past come alive. One such text was by Peruvian anthropologist Marisol De La Cadena who spent many years visiting an Indigenous family in the highlands of the Andes, trying to understand their cultural traditions and practices. In her ethnographic writings, she laboriously describes the Turpo family’s concept of tirakuna (earth-beings) — demystified mountains, rivers, lakes, and glaciers, where divinity, humanity, and nature merge with blurred boundaries and varying forms. Communicating with earth-beings is an essential skill for local Quechuan shamans [3]. The most remarkable aspect of De La Cadena's work, in my opinion, is not just the concept of earth-beings but the human frustrations she encountered while understanding it. Due to the impossibility of translation and unequal semantic understanding, she could only co-create partial connections and mutually understandable spaces through repeated dialogues, using different tools, logics, and beliefs. In this process of interaction, new productivity emerged. While conceptualizing this exhibition I began reflecting on De La Cadena's confusion and misunderstandings in her expressions, feelings, and understanding. I imagined her efforts to comprehend what she saw when looking up at Mount Ausangate, not just rocks, soil, grasslands, trees, eagles, friends, parents, spirits, sacred places, or gods, but something that is "more than one, less than many" [4]. I also felt a widening space for empathy and resonance. This perspective allowed me to accept the limitations and vulnerabilities I experienced when visiting Chile. I came to understand that the concept of nature or ecology is as complex and multifaceted as culture itself, emerging through various processes of mutual understanding, connection, and interaction. It is precisely this embodied learning experience that has shaped the development of The Mountain Algorithms over the past year. I have focused on creating artistic and creative ecological experiences, collaborating with artists to conduct a series of workshops such as "24-Hour Sleep Experiment," “Let’s Become Fungal," "Mind-Skin Codes," "On Waters,” and “How to Sing Their Songs?" [5]. These workshops explore diverse ways to engage with nature, borrowing knowledge from various disciplines to negotiate new understandings and relationships with unconventional senses and awareness. Some commissioned works were nurtured and developed in these open experimental processes with the audience, making it a more cohesive exhibition. These workshops also had unexpected therapeutic and metabolic effects on us. Generally, people’s actions seem confined to their bodies’ faculties and capacities—humans lack the eagle's farseeing eyes and the mycelial internet Wood Wide Web [6]. Despite this, through our interactions with nature during the workshops, our physical senses become more acute and porous. The exchange and reception of energy, and the flow of consciousness, brought us closer to Gaia or earth-beings. Understanding our coexistent state within the ecosystem means becoming part of each other's metabolic processes of life and death, providing oxygen and decomposition for one another, contributing to Gaia's cycles of regeneration. The Mountain Algorithms weaves two speculative threads into its core concerns which are briefly mentioned below, with the exhibited works responding to them as they explore ecology in the Anthropocene: Senses and Climate: Most of us no longer possess the abilities of hunters tracking animals, farmers cultivating soils, or explorers navigating by stars and seas. In our digital age, we primarily manage our identities and communities within virtual worlds. While digital habitats seem to weaken bodily perception, they also connect us to powerful networks, vast data, extended communal senses, and an accompanying surveillance society. How might we reclaim our bodily potential, find new ways to attune to environmental rhythms, and reconnect with nature? Alternatively, how can we use digital technologies to feel the world beyond human senses? Could this be our opportunity to transcend anthropocentric perspectives? Metabolic Recovery: The Human Body as a Tuning Agent: In Lovelock's envisioned future Gaia symbiotic system, AI will rely on human bodies and actions to care for Earth's ecology, indicating a mutual dependence within Gaia. This suggests that our current responsibility is to find tuning possibilities within the seemingly separate realms of artificial and natural intelligence, bridging more reciprocal relationships and pathways. In other words, the deeper meaning of "thinking like a mountain" implies that our ecological interventions should no longer be exploitative nor extractive but should create enduring, fluid connections and infrastructures of long-term care. How can we, as individuals, jointly approach the wisdom of the Earth and its beings? This mission, shared with AI, may serve as our collective ark. We might seek past wisdom from various civilizations, observe natural environments, and employ more groundbreaking methods to envision the future. For instance, Donna Haraway's early concept of the cyborg and her later idea of Chthulucene multispecies monsters [7] offer sci-fi narratives that lay the groundwork for necessary cross-species communication, cooperation, and coexistence strategies. Aesthetically, the exhibition layers multiple sci-fi narratives to create reflective spaces, using both fictional and documentary storytelling to address Anthropocene concerns. The exhibition space aims to construct an interactive landscape, encouraging ecological understanding and practices. The works draw from the history of visual technology and quantum physics' logic of space-time, exploring new pathways for co-writing and practicing recovery in our reality, enhanced by the temporal layering of mountains and AI. The exhibition space itself metaphorically represents an inverted body, where artists present various sensorial and fantastical future visions, metabolic mechanisms, and cyclical proposals. They offer different cosmologies and ecological reflections, using performative invitations to lead audiences through new perceptions and creations. Together, we can experience dormancy, breathe, learn the language of plants, and channel energy within machines, collectively embracing entropy's chaos. The Mountain Algorithms project develops an "exhibition as body politics" approach, transforming various ecological thoughts and practices into embodied memories, rhythms, and repair exercises. Our collaboration and co-evolution will not only encompass material landscapes and organic life but also leap into the computationally generated future networks, engaging in collective dances towards multiple universes. In these movements, we seek resonance and action, making ecological art an aesthetic, an attitude anew. 1. Lovelock, James. Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintellegence, Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2019. 2. Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac, New York: Ballantine Books, 1986. 3. Cadena, Marisol De La. Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice Across Andean Worlds, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2015. 4. The concept of "More than one less than many" was first proposed by Donna J. Haraway in her book Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (1991), and it was also used as the title of an article by Heather Anne Swanson, Nils Bubandt, and Anna Tsing (2015) to review and discuss the Anthropocene academic conference. They strategically approached the Anthropocene as a science fiction concept to understand this emerging field. Cadena also agreed that this concept aptly conveyed the characteristics of earth-beings. 5. Mycelium Academy is a series of workshops organized by Moss Piglets and curated by Esther Lu. For the complete 2023 program overview, please see https://mosspiglets.work/somewhere/myceliumacademy 6. The concept of Wood Wide Web is termed to describe the information and logistic exchange in forests by Sheldrake, Merlin. Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures, New York: Random House, 2020. 7. Haraway, Donna J. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. Esther Lu is a curator and writer with a background in literature, art history, activism and curatorial studies. She is interested in formulating conceptual ways of seeing and discursive events that intertwine art and reality. Many of her projects focus on the interplay of sensibility, body, institution and memory. She is driven by the curiosity to explore human conditions, boundaries of knowing, and how art embodies and exceeds our imagination to address various concerns toward humanity, culture and the relevance of life. Esther was the director of Taipei Contemporary Art Center from 2015 to 2017, and the curator of This is Not a Taiwan Pavilion — a collateral event at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. She has curated a number of international exhibitions and workshops in Asia and Europe, including Mycelium Academy (multiple sites in Taiwan and Chile, 2023), 7 Bodies and the Talking Sea (Chiang Mai University, 2022), Moon Salt (Vernacular Institute, Mexico City, 2022; Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2021), The Turn of the Fifth Age, (Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Bandung, 2021), Listening Eyes (CAC, Vilnius, 2020), etc. Her recent curatorial practice involves creating co-learning and innovative mediation strategies for professional workshops and audience experience. She founded Moss Piglets, a non-profit initiative to investigate future body politics in 2021.
The Mountain Algorithms Toward Metabolic Recovery for Generated Futures Curator | Carolina Castro Jorquera Over the last fifteen years, my curatorial practice has shifted to explore how art, when in conversation with ecology, can radically engender awareness and hope. I consider this shift a spiritual response to the socio-environmental crises we face as it involves recognizing the “pattern that connects” beings and things in an extrahuman temporality [1]. I live in an extractive territory in Chile, where the main sources of employment are agriculture—primarily avocados and grapes for export—and mining. Growing up, I often heard my parents and their friends extol the virtues of living in a mining country, whose economic backbone has historically relied on copper exports, and more recently, on mining lithium and other rare minerals, which contribute to high pollution levels, water contamination and biodiversity decline. The city where I was born and live, nestled at the foothills of the Andes Mountains and home to the highest peak in the Americas, Aconcagua (6960 m), has turned its back on the Aconcagua River, which is at risk of running dry after more than ten years of drought and siphoning for agricultural purposes. In addition to this, the glacial summit that feeds this river is threatened by mining activities. Here, we live paradoxically: while I may own the surface of a piece of land, another entity—such as a mining company—can own the subsurface, granting them the right to exploit minerals regardless of the impact on the ecosystem. As if this weren't enough, Chile is the only country in the world where water is privatized. This single scenario, replicated in various permutations worldwide, is a direct consequence of global policies over the last century. Scenarios like these call upon those of us engaged in research, curation, and art through practice (Ars/Tékhne) to shift our perspectives. We must consider artistic and curatorial endeavors as catalysts for ethical and aesthetic reflections and actions, both within and outside institutional contexts. Perhaps this is why my curatorial work today is in communication with biodiversity conservation initiatives, which have not only allowed me to theoretically contemplate these issues but also to actively engage with the land. These experiences have profoundly impacted me, altering my perspective on the place I call home: rather than lamenting the effects of drought on plants, I marvel at their resilience and adaptive strategies. I transitioned from observing monocultures to appreciating native trees—some centuries old—that still stand resilient. My perception shifted from noticing the absence of native animals to recognizing their presence via their burrows, nests, vocalizations, and cooperative survival strategies. Even when I am away in remote and pristine territories, these natural ecosystems succinctly adapt to slight alterations, revealing how necessary it is to recognize multiple forms of interdependence, especially now. As Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies argue in their book Ecofeminism, today there is a “harsh competition for Earth's resources and ownership of nature. Ecological change necessitates that we no longer view ourselves as separate from the ecological web of life—as masters, conquerors, and owners of Earth's resources. Instead, we must recognize ourselves as members of Earth's family, with a responsibility to care for other species and life in its entirety, from the tiniest microbes to the largest mammals. This new perspective acknowledges that science has undergone a paradigm shift—from a mechanistic and reductionist approach, which focuses on breaking systems down into their individual parts, to a relational and holistic approach, which emphasizes the interconnectedness and interactions of all parts within a system” [2]. The Mountain Algorithms emerges as a way to extend this relational and holistic approach to human-made creations such as machines, specifically intelligent computational systems. The Mountain Algorithms explores AI’s relationship with other intelligences—be they living beings like plants, animals, fungi, and microbes, or “Earth beings” like mountains, ultimately viewing the planet itself as a large organism [3]. What future scenarios might unfold where artificial intelligence systems communicate with a Mountain and develop algorithms for its ecosystem balance? When we embarked on this exhibition, we pondered how two art curators could immerse themselves in the specific and complex world of artificial intelligence and its bearing on the natural world/the rest of the world. As we progressed, we realized that the rapid development of AI, especially its ethical implications, posed challenges but also required highly creative minds to potentially diagnose the impact of this burgeoning technology. We both resonated deeply with the idea James Lovelock presents: that these new and hyper-intelligent beings will be as dependent on planetary health as we are, that they will need Gaia's planetary cooling system to shield them from the increasing heat and the effects of global warming, just as we do. According to Lovelock, for artificial intelligence to thrive, it must ensure planetary health and enable Earth's intelligence to survive and expand[4]. Recent research considers how the emergence of technological intelligence could represent a planetary-scale transition—not just something happening on a planet but to a planet. Models such as Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis propose that life's origins themselves were a planetary phenomenon. This approach suggests that exploring planetary intelligence could provide a useful framework for understanding future trajectories of life on Earth. Are we witnessing the dawn of an era where collaborations between living beings and intelligent computational systems can reshape planetary intelligence? Two years ago, I had the opportunity to join a 10-day expedition to Cape Horn with nine colleagues from the International Cape Horn Center. We formed two teams on the ship: one was tasked with installing a weather station on Hornos Island—the southernmost island on the planet—and the other, which I was in, conducted various monitoring missions on local flora and fauna. I spent much of my time aboard counting birds for a census (led by biologist Ricardo Rozzi's team) dedicated to climate change and biocultural conservation that had already been in progress for over two decades. One thing that struck me during this journey was the constant fluctuation between analog and digital technologies used for scientific work. While I counted birds, tethered to the bow of the boat with binoculars trained on the coastline and recording each sighting with a graphite pencil on waterproof paper, my colleagues carried hundreds of kilograms of equipment for the weather station up a 230-meter summit facing constant winds of up to 200 km/h. Once installed, the station began transmitting data via a satellite antenna connected to a geostationary satellite positioned over the equator. While doing all this, our locations were constantly geolocated using a GPS device. The presence of such technology in this pristine and remote location seemed profound to me. Near the end of our expedition, we disembarked on the southwest coast of the island and I accompanied one of my colleagues, who was installing the weather station, to pilot his drone. Amid dense grasslands and penguin colonies, where paths in all directions had to be carefully treaded, I watched him don augmented reality glasses and together we watched the drone fly from the coastline to the summit where the station was perched. This sight, coupled with the drone's astonishing speed as it disappeared from view, sparked a series of questions: How did penguins and other island animals perceive this drone? Did they mistake its sound for that of an unknown animal, or did they recognize it as a technological device? In what ways might its presence alter—or not—the acoustic ecosystem of the place and the landscape itself? While the drone flew for only a few minutes, the weather station remains as part of Chile's Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research Network (LTSER), sending biophysical data to satellites to provide scientists with specific information crucial for understanding and predicting the impacts of global climate change. My mind continues to ponder the interplay between this data and ecosystem equilibrium, as well as Lovelock's notion that AI systems will oversee Gaia's care, and the trajectory of planetary intelligence. Emanuele Coccia notes that “infinite sensors currently provide real-time data on Earth's biological, geological, and meteorological conditions, allowing us to see and feel the planet in real time. The climate crisis unites all these manifestations, making every event, no matter how small, a behavior of the entire planet.” [5] In this new scenario, it becomes nearly impossible to continue conceiving of a separation between technology and nature, between algorithm and mountain. What fascinates me about Coccia's idea is that, through a confluence of elements, Earth reveals itself to us today in its entirety, leaving little room to view it merely as an object within which we live. Instead, it invites us to perceive and interact with Earth as a subject with whom we are constantly engaged, suggesting a provocative statement: "technology is not there to defend us or distance us from forests, rivers, mushrooms, animals, bacteria, or storms, but to connect and interact with their most spiritual aspect." [6] While our digital lives often distance us from the ancestral knowledge that made our predecessors adept in understanding the rhythms of nature and its secrets, today it offers us the opportunity to reconnect with them. Nearly a year ago, during my research trip to Taiwan, I had the privilege of meeting several artists who are now part of The Mountain Algorithms. I was struck by how, in a world that persistently calls for global understanding, local knowledge continues to endure, demonstrating that we are not one world but a multiplicity of worlds. We traveled to Hualien, specifically invited by Rngrang Hangul, a filmmaker from the Truku tribe, to visit her family in a nearby community. There, we met her mother, Heydi, who follows the hunting rituals that usually can only be practiced by men in her tribe since ancient times. In today's context, laws protecting indigenous cultures in Taiwan often conflict with conservation laws: the former defends her people's customs, while the latter prioritizes biodiversity conservation. For Heydi, who has been featured in her daughter's recent films, the forest rules are what matter, balanced according to the ancestral traditions of Gaya—an entity embodying the intelligence and knowledge of their territory. In this reality, Gaya accompanies Heydi on her forest journeys, allowing her to practice hunting certain animals while striving to sustain the ecosystem as much as possible, thus maintaining her tribe's traditions. In the language we have crafted in The Mountain Algorithms, Heydi's knowledge would be embodied in the mountain. This raises some more questions: What algorithms could preserve Gaya's knowledge and integrate it into planetary intelligence? Can Heydi's knowledge retain its spiritual and sacred character in the era of superintelligence? These are some of the questions that permeate this exhibition which we present to you as offerings. References and notes 1.Espíritu y Naturaleza, Gregory Bateson, Amorrortu Editores, Buenos Aires, 1980. Original edition in English, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, E. P. Dutton, New York, 1979. In this book, Bateson specifically discusses living beings; however, his writings on this "pattern that connects" have inspired many subsequent and contemporary authors (such as Kohn, Descola, Bennet, etc.) to extend this connection beyond the living world and even into matter. 2. Shiva, V. Mies, M., (2015) Ecofeminismo. Econautas, Icaria Editorial. p. 31-32 3. De la Cadena, Marisol., (2015) Earth Beings. Ecologies of Practice Across Andean Worlds, Duke University Press. 4. The Gaia Hypothesis, first developed by Lovelock (1984), posits that life on Earth was capable of maintaining global conditions, such as average temperature, within a range that kept the planet habitable, through negative feedback loops between life and planetary geochemistry. Lynn Margulis contributed to this collaboration by focusing on the remarkable abilities of microbes to act as drivers of Gaian feedback. What I am interested in pointing out here is that through her research on evolutionary cooperation (in contrast to Darwinian competition), Margulis saw microbial domains as rich in a kind of "preintelligence." As she wrote, "the view of evolution as a chronic bloody competition... dissolves in the face of a new view of continuous cooperation, strong interaction, and mutual dependence among life forms. Life did not take over the planet by combat, but by creating networks" (Margulis L, Sagan D and Thomas L, 1986, *Microcosmos*. Berkeley: University of California Press. doi:10.1525/9780520340510). 5 and 6. Coccia, Emanuele. “Museos de naturaleza contemporánea. Dar vida a lo no humano en la ciudad”. Live Conference at Simposio Estética UC "Pensar el antropoceno desde el Sur. Ficciones y paisajes en la zona extractiva" Santiago de Chile, 2023. Notes shared by the author. Carolina Castro Jorquera is a Chilean art historian, critic, and curator. She works as a Guest Lecturer in the MFA program Image Making and Research at Universidad Finis Terrae in Santiago, and collaborates with initiatives linked to biocultural conservation such as the Cape Horn International Center (CHIC) and Parque la Giganta. She is the author of El Camino de la conciencia (Ediciones Universidad Finis Terrae). As a curator, she has organized numerous group and solo exhibitions, including Alejandro Leonhardt: Negro descanso de las Aguas (2023) Galería Patricia Ready and Líquida Superficie Sólida (2021)