Máquinas&Almas (“Souls&Machines”) explores the fact that, at the beginning of the 21st century, art and science move along parallel paths. And it does this through the work of a group of artists chosen for their ability to combine art, technology, mystery, emotion and beauty.
The crucial element in the new technological discontinuity is our humanity. Without it, everything else lacks meaning. Computers do not think; they replicate our thoughts. They do not feel; they replicate our emotions. As Sherry Turkle described them, they are the psychological mirror we gaze into.
“Souls&Machines” maps the main conceptual strategies and routes crisscrossing the vast, interdisciplinary territory of new media. Through disciplines like robotics, software art and social tools for the web, information visualization or biotechnologies, we encounter issues like the new dimensions of identity, privacy and control on the internet, the transformation of the concepts of property and collaboration, or the fascination for reproducing the mechanisms of life and intelligence.
The names featured in the exhibition stand at a very specific crossroads. In a way, they represent a generation of creators -not only artists- who have defined the limits of the discourse of new media, taking them beyond their speculative beginnings and constructing their strategic and linguistic bases. Their voices have grown in parallel to the expansion of the hybrid, fascinating space they inhabit.
FEATURED ARTISTS:
THEO JANSEN
Strandbeest
SACHIKO KODAMA
Protrude, Flow 2008 / Breathing Chaos / Sculpture Garden
BEN RUBIN / MARK HANSEN
Listening Post
DAVID BYRNE / DAVID HANSON
Song for Julio
CHICO MACMURTRIE / AMORPHIC ROBOT WORKS
Inflatable Architectural Body
PAUL FRIEDLANDER
The Enigma of Light / Spinors / Wave Function / Timeless Universe
DANIEL ROZIN
Circle Mirror / Weave Mirror / Trash Mirror
DANIEL CANOGAR
Palimpsesto
RAFAEL LOZANO-HEMMER
Micrófonos, Subescultura 10
VUK COSIC
History of Art for the Intelligence Community
JOHN MAEDA
Nature
EVRU
Tecura
PIERRE HUYGHE
One Million Kingdoms
ANTONI ABAD
Zexe.net
ANTONI MUNTADAS
On Translation: Social Networks
HARUN FAROCKI
Deep Play
NATALIE JEREMIJENKO / ÁNGEL BORREGO