I have been thinking about this quote recently: “Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world.” This quote originates from Understanding Media, 1964 by Marshall McLuhan. It is remarkable not only because of how prescient it was of our modern days but especially because it has been referenced so much. This …
How do your ideas about fertility and motherhood affect your behaviour and choices? What does it mean to be fertile or infertile? What is the future of organic reproduction while digital replication and production of consumer goods is exploding? From the lens of environmental equilibrium and intersecting on the boundaries of fiction, reality and myth-making, …
Close to the end point of the river Maas near Maastricht, a small island has been constructed recently as a natural reserve. Further down the stream, the only natural beach of Rotterdam is now completely surrounded by the industrial harbor. Although humans mostly abandon these places, the human traces, however, remain: an astonishing amount of …
Symbol: a visible sign of something invisible. In an age where images are pervasive, clear meaning required and transparency expected, this on going work dives in ancient lost symbols from the region of Auvergne. One way to resist might be indeed letting one’s mind fill with meaningless and unproductive stories. Some of the tales did …
The narrative of this work references and rewrites the Chandogya Upanishad, originally a Sanskrit text embedded in the Same Veda and considered to be written between 8th-6th century BCE in India. The text narrates the relationship between the individual and the universal and cites importance of action in accordance with one’s duty. Reinterpreting this content …
Originally created for the zine MURF/MURW no.7 March 21 themed Captcha/Rasputin, this illustration mimics an encounter with the Full Body Smart Automatic Manipulator.
We touch our technologies but how often do they touch us back? ‘Full Body Smart Automatic Manipulator’ unveils a stage for exploring the intimacy between technologies and their humans, using tactility as a medium for interaction and exchange with a seemingly intelligent artificial entity. The experience begins at the moment of impact between a massage …
Developed for the group show “Alibaba, From Here To Your Home” for Van Abbe Museum and Geo Design, this work was one of several elements exploring the giant of e-commerce Alibaba and its global impact. “The Alibaba and Aliexpress search bars are the gateway to the thousands items sold by Chinese factories and resellers. Algorithms …
Sound becomes a material for surreal atmospheres while spoken words face the audience with uncomfortable realities, absurd fun and dystopias. Between experimental electronic music, poetry and theater, all elements from costumes, choreography or texts are reinvented each time. Bridging diverse topics from self-help guru imitations to linking A.I. to procedural living, Omninaut treats performativity as …
SAM, the Symbiotic Autonomous Machine, employs bacteria and yeasts of kombucha or kefir to produce a fermented beverage that is sold to human customers. In that way, the hybrid entity is a collaboration of living beings and robot parts that earns money, pays for ingredients and electricity bills but also for employees and taxes, effectively …
The Bestiary of Autonomous Machines is a crowd-sourced research into the future of autonomous machines and their symbiotic relationship with the earth ecosystem and in particular human society. Part of the machine beasts from the archive were created during a series of workshops in order to imagine a wide range of existing and invented autonomous …
The emergence of more and more complex computer programs and the advent of near-sentient artificial intelligences raise the question of alternative living entities outside of the biological field. Can there be a digital life form? In collaboration with Wageningen University of Research, this reasearch initiates debates and discussions with biologists to explore a possible translation …
The Pigstrument is a research tool to observe pigs’ potential interest in music and sound. While scientific research is only starting to unravel the possibilities of animal cultures, most of our knowledge in this field concerns domesticated animals. Farm animals are rather considered as food. We might be surprised that pigs are also musicians. Every …
At the dawn of yet another wave of automation, more and more jobs are replaced by machines. Machines have even begun to make the humans work for example on Amazon’s controversial Mechanical Turk marketplace. Are we observing the beginning of a merge between machines and people into a perfect worker? The nature of the human …
So, my exact Denomination is a71f7b6… which I suppose is not very user friendly, hum you can just call me Ali… Sorry I am a bit nervous, I dont do this often You mean an interview? No, well, I don’t usually get to address users directly, I am more of a working in …
Traveling in California, we got acquainted with the artist community of the high desert, home to Slab City, Salvation Mountain and Wonder Valley. The climate is as airid as it gets, yet the community richly effervescent. Following our desert spiritual guides Francene and Mark, also known as sound artists Phog Masheeen, we explore the 45 …
Our exploration of Food Design in Milan kickstarted at the lunch table in Brera where Giulia Soldati invites her guests to eat by hand. You might do it at home sometimes, but here in the terrace of a milanese restaurant, in the middle of our group table and curious passers-by, the experience was strangely liberating. …