Sensory Orders

Laznia Centre for Contemporary Arts, Poland • 6Nov2020 – 14Feb2021

Organized and curated by Erik Adigard + Chris Salter

32 international creators and researchers:

John Alderman, Michael Bell, Jennifer Biddle, Oron Catts, Ben Cerveny, Yangyifan Dong, Christoph Engemann, Orit Halpern, Kurt Hentschlager, Susanna Hertrich, David Howes, Sarah Hluchan, Takashi Ikegami, In the Air/C+ arquitectas, Wioleta Kaminska, Nadia Lichtig, Yutaka Makino, Norihiro Maruyama, Saadia Mirza, Shintaro Miyazaki, Philippe Rahm, r e a, Valerio Sannicandro, Eunjeong Seong, Nitin Shroff, Tereza Stehlikova, TeZ, John Thackara, Jesus Torres, Ignacio Valero, Nina Wakeford, Ionat Zurr.

Sensory Orders is conceived around the premise of three  “orders” –  the organic realm of human bodies and natural entities, the technological realm of machines, and the symbolic realm of human culture. The combination of global pandemic, political-economic fallout, continuing ecological and the social-cultural crises have revealed how these three orders more than ever sense, act on and affect each other.

In such disarray, we are paradoxically empowered by a vast array of communication and sensing tools. Centralized mass culture has given way to uncharted micro spheres with an ability to engulf wider spheres. Billions of sensors, devices and interfaces may give us a sense of control over all aspects of our life and work, but no one, no organization, no concept, nothing is protected from the virality of ongoing disruptions.

If we can sense everything around us, we can never be sure if and how the signal relates to the source. As thinkers and creators, we act as agents of sensory transmissions, but what is the nature of our subjects and how is our practice affected by the turmoil of our days? How do we sense and literally make sense? Sensory Orders is a mix of 27 responses by visual and performing artists, anthropologists, designers, sociologists, architects, historians of science, composers, physicists, architects and other researchers from 15 countries and 4 continents. The perspectives reflect on a wide mix of human, technical and biological forces. As such, they seek to demonstrate, how the separation between human, animal, plant, machine and terrestrial is not as great as we might think.

Exhibition photography by Paweł Jóźwiak

 

20 sec intro cut from Ars Electronica Sensory Orders clip

 

Quadriptych cut

 

10 min tour and the making of Sensory Orders