UNLEASHED UTOPIAS

In the exhibition, various virtual worlds serve to question the givens of the physical environment: How do nature and technology coexist? What forms make it possible to represent physicality in the digital world, and how does artificial intelligence influence our communal life?

In this exhibition, the artists nominated for the VR ART PRIZE by DKB in Cooperation with CAA Berlin demonstrate how new technologies can be used for a more just, diverse, and personal coexistence. Through the media of virtual reality and site-specific installations, visitors will be able to immerse themselves in utopian visions. In their work, the artists address the current transformation of values and norms in our society, linking their speculations to topical socio-political debates. Themes such as artificial intelligence, 3D scanning, animation technologies, the scientific research of nature, and the metaverse are critically questioned.

Marlene Bart works with digitized artifacts from natural history. In virtual worlds, she brings them to life, creating a new perspective of our ideas about nature. Anan Fries overcomes this separation of nature and technology in a completely different way. They creates a world in which all bodies can become pregnant, vanquishing the boundaries between the biological separation of the sexes. Rebecca Merlic celebrates the liberation from binary identities, as well as physical transformation and the diversity of human individuality. Mohsen Hazrati combines figures from Iranian myths and traditional prophecy with artfully modified forms of artificial intelligence in order to give us cryptic advice for the future. Lauren Moffatt looks into the inner human and creates a multifaceted and intimate landscape that blends the data gathered by artificial intelligence with painting.

The artists’ unleashed utopias rattle the cages of societal norms and the purely profit-oriented usage of new technologies. With their radical speculations, they open new perspectives onto our existence and our coexistence. With their visions they reinforce the values of open-mindedness, diversity, and tolerance that should characterize our society now and in the future. This is precisely where its utopia also lies.