Frederik De Wilde has announced three new online exhibitions: Hunter and Dog, NEXT NATURE_POST-CAMOUFLAGE and EXPLODED VIEWS OF A FUTURE PRESENT. Part of a series of online shows in development by De Wilde, they each look from a different angle and through different frames of reference at the hybridization and digitisation of human bodies and culture. The exhibitions can be experienced online, with Google Chrome being the recommended browser.
Hunter and Dog is inspired by the 1838 sculpture of the same name by John Gibson. It examines the coevolution of human and algorithmic worlds and the impact of both on nature, looking in particular at CRISPR, the family of DNA sequences whose identification enables gene editing. The artist asks ethical, philosophical and practical questions about a future of evolution mediated by technologies and human desires. The exhibition is produced by Frederik De Wilde with assistance from Sofie Renap, and is supported by the Culturele Activiteitenpremie, Vlaamse Overheid.
To access the exhibition, either follow this link in Google Chrome (full screen recommended), or download an app via the App Store or Google Play Store, then use the ID code 3197 to view the sculpture in augmented reality.
NEXT NATURE_POST-CAMOUFLAGE is a virtual exhibition which interrogates the increasing ability of new technologies to change human body and mind. Exploring the future of genetics in a digital world, to make the work in the exhibition De Wilde has created a speculative species of beetle capable of evading surveillance cameras and neural networks. The ‘Razzle Dazzle’ patterns on the beetles’ shells are generated by neural networks.
“In the future we’ll probably be able to encode such data patterns in our DNA, or generate them in a bioreactor to show second skins, to scramble electronic or biometric surveillance, or simply to create a second artificial nature” - Frederik De Wilde.
De Wilde highlights the ubiquity of monitoring technologies in the world today and the intimate relationship humans share with cameras, algorithms and remote screens. NEXT NATURE_POST-CAMOUFLAGE asks important questions relating to ethics and well-being, which in turn shape cultural changes, and imagines potential future patterns of surveillance and its evasion.
The exhibition can be visited in Google Chrome at this link. It was produced by De Wilde and Assistant Sofie Renap, in collaboration with Privacy Salon and CPDP2021
EXPLODED VIEWS OF A FUTURE PRESENT (pictured above), De Wilde’s third current online show, is concerned with art as a means to understand reality in new ways. The exhibition is inspired by highlights of a long history of exploration at the border between art and science, from Renaissance polymaths to today’s AI artworks (a collaboration between human and algorithm. By speculatively exploring future technologies, the exhibition draws attention to this fertile and often conflicted border, critiquing unheeded expansion and ideologically-fuelled technological development.
View EXPLODED VIEWS OF A FUTURE PRESENT via this link (Chrome browser recommended).
