Shimmer: Dreaming the Posthuman
This exhibition shows artists seeking to connect us with the more-than-human world, from which we may feel separated. Created with both analog and digital technologies, their works pulse with shimmer—an otherworldly glow that illuminates enchanted realms where extinct species virtually reappear; machines become entwined with amoeba, slime, and microbes; and mysterious dancing avatars project messages of transformation and renewal. Through these works, new ways of understanding our interdependence with other forms of life, from microbes to whales, seem possible.
The word posthuman in this exhibition’s title suggests the aftermath of our own extinction. It also challenges the notion, derived from humanist tradition, that our intelligence and self-awareness set us apart from other forms of life. While humanist disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, and history encourage an understanding of individual humans and society, posthumanists contend that we must also feel empathy for all beings in order to heal our world, which is suffering from human abuse and exploitation.
Shimmer is organized into three parts. “Endangered Species” emphasizes the interdependence of different life-forms, from single-celled organisms and insects to animals and people. In “Dreams and Metamorphosis,” fantastic scenes and hybrid shapeshifters reinforce the role of the radical imagination in changing our perceptions of the nonhuman world. “Everything Is Connected” features artists who link the emotions with science, human creativity with nonhuman intelligence, and Indigenous beliefs with speculative futures. As they morph, flicker, and dance, the artworks in these galleries demonstrate how artists can use new technologies to inspire us to embrace an ethic of care for the planet.
Endangered Species
How is the definition of the human changing? What constitutes life, and what differentiates plant and animal, human and non-human? What are our responsibilities towards the planet, other people, and other life forms? And what would life look like without us?
—Cecilia Alemani
The exhibition begins by posing questions: As humans, do our intelligence, adaptability, and self-awareness make us unique and superior to other forms of life? If so, does this give us the right to exploit and destroy nonhuman species, even to the point of extinction?
Using analog and digital technologies, artists in this section visualize creatures ranging from single-celled organisms and termites to large mammals as having complex mental abilities like problem-solving, communicating, and remembering. If we knew that we share cognitive traits with other species, would this lead us to empathize with them and recognize that, contrary to the idea that human exceptionalism sets us apart from the natural world, we are inextricably entangled with something vastly greater than ourselves?
Quotation from “Statement by Cecilia Alemani, Curator of the 59th International Art Exhibition,” La Biennale di Venezia, 2022.
Dreams and Metamorphosis
Dreams carry a transformative potential, not just metaphorically but practically, in their ability to remake our world model and, in doing so, spark meaningful change. Dreams offer a powerful antidote to the feeling of futility and hopelessness many may be experiencing today.
—Julia Kaganskiy
In creating digital dreams for our times, the artists featured in this section of Shimmer seek to upend the patterns of habit and thought that prevent us from imagining positive change on personal and cultural scales. Like the surrealists did a hundred years ago, they tell playful stories of metamorphosis; in this enchanted realm, people become microbes and slime; dreams become poetry; and robots become furious dancers, countering the pain of the world with vitality and joy.
Quotation from Julia Kaganskiy, “Dreaming a New Reality in the Age of Neural Media,” in this exhibition’s catalogue.
Everything Is Connected
Drawing on a posthuman lens we . . . explore shimmering as incorporating a sensorial richness, as beauty and grandeur, as constantly in flux, moving between past, future and back again. Shimmering has potentiality in a posthuman context in its encompassing of spiritual and ancestral energies.
—Karen Malone
Using a posthuman perspective to explore who we are in relation to the cosmos, artists in this section link dreams with history, human creativity with nonhuman intelligence, and Indigenous animism with new digital technologies. Pulsing with shimmer, their works blur distinctions between humanity and the nonhuman world.
Quotation from Karen Malone et al., “Shimmering with Deborah Rose: Posthuman Theory-Making with Feminist Ecophilosophers and Social Ecologists,” Australian Journal of Environmental Education 36, no. 2 (July 2020).
