Laznia 2 Centre for Contemporary Art, 5 Strajku Dokerów Str., Gdańsk - Nowy Port

8.05 – 5.07.2015

19.09 – 31.10.2015 / Porsgrunn, Norwegia, Kunsthall Grenland

Curator: Jasia Reichardt
Coordination: Tymoteusz Skiba, Anna Szynwelska

The opaning in Gdańsk: 8 May, 6 pm

The meeting with curator of the exhibition and other guests: 8 May, 7 pm 

The video documentation from the meeting yoy can find here

 

Screening of “Metropolis” (1927), dir. Fritz Lang: 10 May 2015, at 5 P.M.

 

Honorary Patronage of the President of Poland Bronislaw Komorowski

 

The subject of this exhibition is human imagination and its thirst to create a parallel world of machines, puppets, dolls, automata, robots, which are nearly but not quite like us. Today, the population of these imaginary beings and machines occupies its own world in art, in fiction, in film, and in many aspects of our lives. 

 

The exhibition "Nearly Human" involves some 70 participants and encompasses three sections. The first section, which represents the majority of the exhibits consists of printed images, which deal with the history of ideas that touch on things that are nearly human. They represent the background of our desire to make things that either look like, or function, as we do. The second section includes original works, which are shown as videos on screens. The artists are: Pierre Bastien, Daisuke Furuike, Theo Jansen, and Chico MacMurtrie. The third section includes six kinetic works. These are by Richard Kriesche, Tim Lewis, Tony Oursler, Studio Azzurro, Jim Whiting and Christiaan Zwanikken.

 

 

The exhibition is a part of the Art+Science Meeting 2015 and is a continuation of a project realised by Laznia CCA since 2011. It consists of events presenting works of the most eminent world artists who collaborate with the scientists or whose work balances between science and art and undertakes issues concerning artificial life and artificial intelligence, contributing to the discussion on post-human condition.

 

Jasia Reichardt, curator of the exhibition, is a writer on art and an exhibition organiser. She is interested in art that encroaches on other fields, be it science or literature and has spent many years following up the connections between art and technology. One of her books is about the history of robots, and her best know exhibition, Cybernetic Serendipity, which was about the computer and the arts, was presented at the ICA in London in 1968.