Exhibition View of The Second Edition of Beijing Art and Technology Biennale
The second edition of Beijing Art and Technology Biennale (BATB) was endowed with an open and free attitude at Genesis Art Gallery, as its curators have not imposed any set route or narrative on the audience. Visitors may feel free to choose where they start their discovery and naturally shuffle through the boundaries of imagination.
Exhibition View of The Second Edition of Beijing Art and Technology Biennale
Held from October 26, 2024 through to February 23, 2025, this edition of Beijing Art and Technology Biennale (BATB) is themed on “Earthwise” and it is curated by Fei Jun and Wang Naiyi. 50 artists and scientists from around the globe were invited to reconsider multiple forms of intelligence, animals, plants, machines, planetary intelligence, and so on in Beijing.
What does it mean to be intelligent? “Earthwise” aims to break human-centric notions of intelligence, and comprises a selection of provocative works that ruminate on notions of intelligence, offering new perspectives that have extended to large-scale processes, including natural systems and planetary systems. According to curator Wang Naiyi, rather than positioning the theme of the exhibition as “Earthwise”, it is better to call it “Planetary Intelligence”. Through a wealth of exhibits, the biennale covers topics such as “post-nature” and “post-human” from a more inclusive and generalized planetary perspective, and it explores the connection between human beings and their surroundings, all things, and even extraterrestrial life and outer space.
Thomas Feuerstein, METABOLICA-HYDRA, 2024. Courtesy of Beijing Art and Technology Biennale.
Thomas Feuerstein believes that “intelligence” today means rethinking the differences and boundaries between Us and The Other. In his installation METABOLICA-HYDRA, the narrative actors are algae and bacteria, and these non-human actors host an ancient intelligence that can certainly be described as “Earthwise.”
Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau, Eau de Jardin, 2024. Courtesy of Beijing Art and Technology Biennale.
A call for a return to the non-anthropocentrism of egalitarian ecological relations can be found in Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau’s Eau de Jardin, which creates an inductive installation that contemplates interconnectedness between humans and plants.
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Alienarium, 2022. Courtesy of Serpentine and the Artist.
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s Alienarium connects our encounters with other alien beings, which inspires us to think about how we might relate to one another when untethered from our physical forms.
Andrea Anner & Thibault Brevet (AATB), A Particular Score III, 2023. Courtesy of the Artist.
Andrea Anner & Thibault Brevet (AATB) highlights the inextricable entanglement between human perception and cosmic phenomena, A Particular Score III reveals our planetary situation and encourages us to re-evaluate our connection to the universe.
Fragmentin, Global Wiring, 2023. Courtesy of Beijing Art and Technology Biennale.
The Swiss art collective Fragmentin envisions a futuristic archaeological scenario: in the last glacier of the Alps, archaeologists have discovered cables and pipes frozen by snow. These relics reveal traces of technological abandonment as well as the influences of climate changes on the environment. Their sculpture, Global Wiring, is a metaphor for the melting of glaciers and the pressing issue of global warming, made up of recycled glass ice cores and various types of cables and pipes. They did not only envision the “archaeology” of the future, but they also conveyed a warning about the current environmental issues.
Wang Zhigang, Tuengel, 2024. Courtesy of Beijing Art and Technology Biennale.
Exhibition View of The Second Edition of Beijing Art and Technology Biennale
“Earthwise” features two newly commissioned works that the Biennale has handed to Oscar winner Tim Yip and Chinese new media artist Wang Zhigang. Building upon this expansive definition of intelligence, it also collaborates with institutions and labs, such as Critical Media Lab, ETH AI Center and Art of Hybrid Intelligence Lab, and unfolds through a series of new commissions, including Nolan Oswald Dennis’ sound installation Superpositions, which is composed from geosonic data, a techno-poetic reflection on our relationship to land, deep time, and planetary interconnection.
Nolan Oswald Dennis, Superpositions. Courtesy of Beijing Art and Technology Biennale.
Artist Tim Yip’s installation Existential Doubt is probably the largest work in the exhibition. Through site-specific immersive theatrical experiences, this internationally acclaimed art director of films invites visitors into a realm of secrecy and fog. The four spaces represent four dimensions, intertwined and circulating, leading people to perceive the ever-changing world of illusions. In this transformation of vision and space, art and technology jointly create an intoxicating and unknown space, manifesting the otherwise untouchable mysterious into an existence that can be perceived and experienced.
Tim Yip, Existential Doubt, 2024. Courtesy of Beijing Art and Technology Biennale.
“The Biennale presents a plurality of voices which are perfect platforms to explore the entanglement of different forms of intelligence,” says curator Wang Naiyi. “Earthwise as a metaphor, which aims to expand the notion of ‘intelligence’ from different perspectives, making us aware of the other intelligences that have been with us all along.”
Uwe Rieger and Yinan Liu, LightWing II, 2024. Courtesy of Beijing Art and Technology Biennale.
A.A. Murakami, Under A Flowing Field, 2024. Courtesy of the Artist.
Exhibition View of The Second Edition of Beijing Art and Technology Biennale。
Whether they are interactive installations that invite the audience to participate, or the performance activities as special units of the exhibition, all of which are committed to helping the audience understand and get involved in the exhibition through diversified forms. Therefore, we should also look at intelligence from the perspective of the planet in a broader sense with a more free and relaxed attitude. Rather than trying to “get” a fixed answer, we may treat everything as equal interlocutors in the vast system of the universe. What’s more important, we should think about what we have been “connected” to, what we feel, and then fly towards this “earthwise” constellation with our experience.
Text (CN) by Jia Qianfan, abridged (EN) by CAFA ART INFO
Image Courtesy of Beijing Art and Technology Biennale
About the Exhibition
Curators: Fei Jun and Wang Naiyi
Dates: October 26, 2024–February 23, 2025
Venue: Genesis Art Gallery
Participants (in alphabetical order):
Andrea Anner & Thibault Brevet (AATB), Art of Hybrid Intelligence Lab, Azusa Murakami & Alexander Groves (A.A.Murakami), Chen Wenling, Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau, Climate Clock, Critical Media Lab, David Colombini & Laura Nieder & Marc Dubois (Fragmentin), Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, ETH AI Center, Gary Hill, Ifor Duncan, Janis Polar, Janiv Oron, Juliane Götz & Sebastian Neitsch (Quadrature), Nolan Oswald Dennis, Oliver Ressler, Solveig Suess, Tekla Aslanishvilli, Thomas Feuerstein, Tim Yip, Tobias Klein, Uwe Rieger & Yinan Liu (arc/sec Lab), Wang Zhigang
