Mythologies for a Spiritually Void Time

The problem with a decreasingly religious world, according to the exhibition curators, is the lack of connection to technologies that are ubiquitous in everyday life. The digital art created by the artists featured in the exhibition, however, can “reveal how our entanglement with technology can help us create myths that reconnect us to wonder, complexity, and a sense of the sacred,” says X.S. Hou, one of the curators. The show organisers believe that these new works began to demonstrate the abilities within technologies to create more mythologies, not fewer, to inspire and reinvigorate society.

Offline’s exhibition opens with a week of festive events in interdisciplinary forms of creativity, celebrating the fifteen artists on display in the space, including Hawa Al-Najjar, Meriem Bennani, Neal Cashman, Barış Çavuşoğlu, Will Freudenheim, X.S. Hou, Gabrielle Ledet, Solomon Leyba, Chris Lloyd, Thomas Ludacer, Ezra Miller, muein, Injune Park, Ben Shirken, Ruby Justice Thelot, Yaloo, and Damon Zucconi. The activities include a panel with experts in AI policy and creation about pressing issues for the field of art, an experimental sound performance by four musicians and groups, and dance shows by Iliana Penichet-Ramírez and Isa Spector.

The artwork displayed includes animation, painting, sculpture, living materials, and networked media, showcasing the many different methods of approaching mystery in technologies today. Open from Wednesdays to Saturdays, this avant-garde collection forges a new way forward in our technology-driven world, and emboldens us to be inquisitive minds as the secrets of humanity become less mysterious.