Artists: Beni Bischof, Emma Bourdieu, Fabian Boschung, Natacha Donzé, Hadrien Dussoix, Marie Griesmar, Renaud Loda, Camille Pellaux, Helen Stephenson
Exhibition title: Der 01.01.3000 ist ein Mittwoch
Venue: Smallville Espace d’art contemporain, Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Date: March 18 – July 1, 2023
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Smallville, Neuchâtel
Note: Exhibition’s floor plan is available here
Art is dead, man. It’s over. AI won, humans lost
–Jason Allen, New York Times, September 2022
In the depths of the earth, in the 23rd sub-basement, a rusty door slides open with all the pains of the world. One more exhibit.A handful of virtual chips. Good for the health but they leave an aftertaste of burnt plastic on a slightly anesthetized tongue. It seems a reasonable decision to turn to synthetic olives and verrines of spirulina emulsion.The tour is quickly completed. Nothing crazy or transcendent tonight. Still the same colorful holographic sculptures waving in the exhibition rooms. They vibrate in the air, unlike the public. The palpable boredom is however well hidden under the gaudy vinyl outfits and the peroxidized smiles. Fortunately, Ruinart champagne, the real one, is flowing and justifies the trip by itself. Twenty thousand kilometers away, not far from Point Nemo, a very large intercontinental ballistic missile, propelled by a liquid fuel rocket engine, is flying through the air at about 7500 km/h.After having suppressed artists for generations, Skynet* has the firm intention to bring the few survivors of the human species back to the stone age.NFT, hologram, arte povera sculpture made with fossilized human bones, clumsily assembled with an eroded hemp rope. What will the art of tomorrow look like? Which future do we foresee for it?Whether victorious or defeated by societal and environmental challenges, it is likely that humanity will continue to develop art for the next few millennia. What image then comes to mind for contemporary artists when they imagine the aesthetics and the art of the future?
* Skynet is a science fiction character featured in The Terminator film series. An artificial intelligence originally created to automate the American nuclear strike, this AI engages in a bloody war against humanity.
