agustine zegers is a Chilean artist and bacterial community, dedicated to the study of symbiotic collaborations amongst different organisms at times of ecological crisis through the use of olfactory and objectual artistic practices. They received a Bachelor Degree in Art and Art History at New York University Abu Dhabi, and a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture and Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University. For this exhibition, zegers-san will revisit their work “filthglycerin” from 2017. In this work, a subtle criticism of Western colonial systems of biomedicine and hygiene is performed through the juxtaposition of bottled glycerin soap with fermenting biological elements such as saliva and hair belonging to a dog; a piece updated in the post-COVID world through the usage of alcohol gel as maceration base.

Felipe Rivas San Martin is an artist, political and sexual dissident and researcher on algorithms, artificial inteligence, and the sexual and gendered biasis present in digital technology today. He obtained the degree of Master of Visual Arts from the University of Chile, and is PhD Candidate in Art of the Universitat Politèctica de València UPV. The piece selected for this exhibition is testimony to the years of artistic reflection towards the effects that media and technology play in the construction of our social and gendered identities. In series such as “Pinturas de interfaz” [“Interface Painting”], which the artist began in 2010, Felipe-san proposes a medial displacement, when translating web interfaces into oil painting allowing for a textural and semiological deconstruction of this new media. For the “Virtual Bodies'' exhibition, Felipe-san will show “Zoom, n°1”, a commissioned textile piece in which the artist reinterprets our emerging relation to time, work and human connection by reproducing the outline of a literal Z*om call he took during social distancing, using felt and recycled fabrics in bright, tropical colors.

Karla Leyva is a Mexican artist whose work in contemporary object and installation art connects ancient Latin American imagery with current experiences and technologies, never shying away from the problems and contradictions that arise when interrogating these two worlds simultaneously. She studied photography at the American College of Photography Ansel Adams, later partaking in the SOMA Arts Program in Mexico City and recently obtaining the Diploma in Neuroscience, Art and Culture at the Autonomous University of Mexico UNAM. The piece chosen for this exhibition is “Mascara electrónica”, which translates from Spanish as “Electronic Mask”. Inspired by both today’s digital consumer culture and also the elaborate masks found in Pre Columbian Mexican Art, the piece uses chipboards from waste electronics and creates laser-cut renders of cosmetic beauty masks. The result is an uncanny depiction of how digital media can influence our own self-perception and identity: as if we are constantly wearing an invisible mask composed from our digital avatars.

KONDÔ Ginga ( 近藤銀河) is a Japanese artists whose interdisciplinary production―spanning from digital rendering, game design, performance, photography, or video―questions naturalized notions of experience, identity, and compulsory able-bodiedness. She received a Bachelor degree in Aesthetics and Art History and is currently graduating the Masters in Intermediate Arts, both programs in Tôkyô University of the Arts (東京藝術大学). The piece selected from this exhibition, “Notifications”, was produced amidst the social distancing required under the COVID-19 global pandemic. In this digital rendering and video piece, KONDÔ-san disavows from the emerging discourses surrounding the pandemic that are weary of the growing necessity for technology in our daily life, as she herself as a differently-able-bodied person has depended for many years on technical mediation for menial tasks such as mobility and therefore communication as well. From this post-humanistic perspective, KONDÔ-san asks us to reconsider which bodies are allowed to experience paranoid disregard towards media and technology, while submerging the audience in a free flowing and seemingly infinite array of menacing screens which provide disorienting flashes of information and personhood; maybe, even insight onto different ways of living. Two complementary works will also be displayed. The digital landscape and video piece “Queer Street” (2017) is a historical exploration of the territory surrounding the venue in Ueno Park, particularly during the revolt of male prostitutes in 1948 who where being targeted by government officials. The artists reflects on the intagible queer history of the territory by creating a virtual ambiance of the park during rainfall, in which different slogans regarding queer politics and representation appear in the facade of building ther present. Finally, the queering of singular identity takes shape in the “Multiple Identity” (2021) 3D printed sculptures, in which multifaceted anthropomorphic figurines defy the labels printed onto their surfaces, expressing a plural visuality in their constitution.

Li Shun, who currently lives and works in Hangzhou, China, received his BFA and MFA at the China Academy of Art School of Intermedia Art. His works have gained global attention through exhibitions and projects at China, U.S.A., and France, as well as entering collections in Australia and Switzerland.
Li creating his “Internet Sketch” series based on the concept of Woyou (Imaginary Tour) from the Wei-Jin era in China, in which ancient people found creative alternatives to physical travels in Shanshui Hua (Landscape paintings). In this project series, Li travels to specific geographical sites and locations on Google Maps and goes through a meticulous process of recording his trip – screenshotting, re-photographing, and finally sketching his destination view. In his work “1984 – the red flag is flying,” Li visits a ski resort in Utah City, U.S.A. and encounters a red flag. While his work shed light on the possibilities of virtual travel in the age of post-COVID, it also provokes questions on mobility and physicality of the experience.

Sebastian Schmieg is a German artist that uses new media in innovative ways as a means to reflect on the way that algorithms, artificial intelligence, and technologies impact our lives and our sense of self in the contemporary world. He studied at University of the Arts Berlin, and currently teaches Interface Design at the University of Applied Sciences HTW Dresden.

Silvio Lorusso and Sebastian Schmieg developed the technological installation “Platform Ghosts”, which is featured in our exhibition. This installation consists of a simple rectangular structure with certain transparent panels covered in smart film. Through software programing, the panels start out densely imbued with a saturated violet, from which off white frases that evoque a profound sense of existential introspection emerge. However, the more people come close to observe the installation, these panels become progressively transparent until completely see-through. In this piece, the artists speculate about the future of human life in the era of automated smart cities, applying the metaphor of the ghost to reflect on the politics of representation in digital platforms and the trafficking of affects through social media.

Silvio Lorusso is an Italian artist, designer, and writer interested in the way discourses such as the exploitative glorification of work under capitalism intersect with current technocultures, including the devices and interfaces we use in our daily life. He obtained a Masters in Visual and Multimedia Communication and a PhD in Design Sciences from the Iuav University of Venice, and is currently teaching at the Center for Other Worlds at the Lusófona University in Lisbon.

Silvio Lorusso and Sebastian Schmieg developed the technological installation “Platform Ghosts”, which is featured in our exhibition. This installation consists of a simple rectangular structure with certain transparent panels covered in smart film. Through software programing, the panels start out densely imbued with a saturated violet, from which off white frases that evoque a profound sense of existential introspection emerge. However, the more people come close to observe the installation, these panels become progressively transparent until completely see-through. In this piece, the artists speculate about the future of human life in the era of automated smart cities, applying the metaphor of the ghost to reflect on the politics of representation in digital platforms and the trafficking of affects through social media.

Slime Engine is an art collective, comprised of the Chinese artists FANG Yang, LI Hanwei, LIU Shuzhen, and SHAN Liang. Created in 2017, the collective develops and intervenes digital platforms to create hyperreal landscapes and immaterial artistic venues, engaging in elaborate parodies of our media consumption through virtual pastiche as a means to criticize the power structures inherent in our contemporary world. The piece selected for the exhibition is called "Headlines", a net art and video-installation project whose first iteration appeared in 2020 amidst the global pandemic. A constantly evolving piece, it is an exploration on the dissemination of fake news in mainstream media and particularly on the cynical preoccupation of news outlets about the economical impact of COVID-19 amidst the humanitarian crisis. An overflow of clinical and incoherent headlines shower over ad campaigns for nonexistent commodities and Japanesque pop avatars. Although initially developed as a digital landscape, the piece has been presented as an installation with monitors mounted over custom wallpaper and other electronic additions. A unique reimagining of the video-installation had been commissioned from the exhibition.

Tactical Tech is a Non-Governmental Organization and digital media literacy program, based in Germany and Netherlands. The project they have developed which we have selected, "The Glass Room Misinformation Edition", should be considered more so as a media literacy workshop than a static artistic piece. Through the use of infographic posters, visuals aids such as statistics with accurate graphs, and factual and well researched textual information, "The Glass Room" empowers audiences to draw well-informed conclusions about how media—traditional and also digital and social media—can affect our conducts and world views, and even spread dangerous misinformation at rapid speed. Creating a space designed for interactive referencing including a desk layout, this piece encourages the viewer to reconsider their own agency as consumers of media, making the exhibition into a microcosm that seeks to confront the anxiety-inducing information overload that we are living in our everyday lives.

Wei Zihan is an artist from China currently based in Tokyo, who focuses on the distance between people, connection between people and space, as well as people and their environment and surrounding objects through photography. After discovering photography at Communication University of China and completing her graduate program at the Department of Imaging Arts and Sciences of Musashino Art University, Wei continues to exhibit her works internationally in numerous galleries and museums, including Canon Open Gallery, Tokyo, and Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, China. In this exhibition, she will present her recent works, including the photographic installation “Going to the Zoo is Serious Business” (2020) and mixed-media installation “The Illusion of Nogeyama” (2021). In both of her works, Wei provides a critical commentary on anthropocentric views towards the relationship between humans and animals by exploring the politics of oppositional perspectives (to “see” and “be seen”) and the absence/presence of humans.

Yashima Ryoko is an artist currently based in Momoshima of Hiroshima prefecture, Japan. She received her BFA at the Musashino Art University. Yashima visualizes memories and inner conflicts in a physical body by revealing the dilemma between human ideals such as peace, liberty and love and the contradicting reality of our society, human nature and taboos.
In this exhibition, Yashima will exhibit her ongoing project “Memento Momo” (2019-2021) for the first time. Her project consists of a variety of documentation capturing the process of Yashima raising and slaughtering a female pig “Momo,” named after the protagonist in Michael Ende’s novel. In an age where the physical body is increasingly treated as a precarious entity, Yashima faces its miraculous and cruel aspects, its essence, with the concept of time.

ZHANG Mengqi (章梦奇) is a Chinese dancer and filmmaker, that transits freely amongst audiovisual, choreographic, and performance languages in order to document her own life and draw wider insights towards the condition of women in East Asia and beyond. She studied at the Dance Academy at China Minorities University. For this exhibition, the main piece selected is the artist's first feature length documentary film titled "Self-Portrait with Three Women" (2010). Returning home after college and living with both her mother and grandmother, ZHANG-san is confronted with an ambivalent desire to both connect with her heritage as well as rebel and break free from traditions. The artist intersects autographic dialogs with her family's matriarchs, interior monologs and shots of her daily life with more poetic, performative images of the dancer moving while interacting with different technologies such as electronic scanners and digital projections displaying the footage of herself as well as from interviews with her mother and grandmother. Also in the exhibition, the short format "Self-Portrait and Dialogue with My Mother" from 2009 documents part of the artist's research and experimentation which lead to her documentary film.

ZHENG Bo (鄭波) is a Chinese artist and filmmaker that applies art, ecological critique and garden-making in his practice from the perspective of queer politics. He received the degree of Master of Fine Arts from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and his doctoral degree from the Graduate Program in Visual & Cultural Studies at the University of Rochester, under the tutelage of Douglas Crimp. He currently teaches at the School of Creative Media at the City University of Hong Kong. The piece selected for this exhibition is the fourth part of the “Pteridophilia” film project. This project could be described as a corporeal and visual exploration of the interspecies relations between humans and other plant species, particularly ferns. In the guise of ecosexual performance, the artist explores a queer notion of desire when East Asian male bodies interact with different fern species in their natural habitat, pleasuring themeselves and sometimes consuming organic elements. With its first installment from 2016, and the next two installments dating from 2018 before the pandemic crisis, ZHENG-san will grace us with a fourth iteration of the piece, revisiting this potent film at a time where our relationship to nature and to the body is shifting.