Reset Modernity!

The GLOBALE exhibition Reset Modernity!, curated by Bruno Latour, Martin Guinard-Terrin, Christophe Leclercq & Donato Ricci, will be opened at ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe on Friday, April 15, at 8pm. Throughout six different procedures, visitors will have the opportunity to experiment with “resetting modernity.” The exhibition is closely linked to the modules Museum of Oil by Territorial Agency and The Appearance of That Which Cannot be Seen by Armin Linke. All three deal with the challenges that the Moderns are facing at a time of deep ecological mutation.

What do you do when you are disoriented? For instance, when the digital compass of your mobile phone goes wild? You reset it. In this exhibition we suggest you to do something similar: resetting a few of the instruments that allow you to register some of the confusing signals sent by the epoch. Except what we are trying to recalibrate is nothing as simple as a compass, but is the most obscure principle of projection allowing us to map out the world, namely Modernity.

What we are convinced of is that Modernity was a way to differentiate past and future, North and South, up and down, progress and regress, rich and poor, radical and conservative. However, such a compass, especially at a time of ecological crisis, is spinning wildly without offering much bearing. This is the time for a reset. Let’s pause for a while, follow a procedure and search for different sensors that could allow us to recalibrate our detectors, our instruments, to feel anew where we are and where we might wish to go.

Yes, the overall experiment may be fairly disorienting at first, but after waiting a bit you might feel that you have regained some ability to reorient yourself. No guarantee, of course: this is an experiment, a thought experiment, a Gedankenausstellung.

Symposium and side events
In addition to the opening of Reset Modernity!, ZKM | Karlsruhe will host the symposium Next Society – Facing Gaia, curated by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, on Friday and Saturday, April 15 and 16. It will examine the current state of the Earth and the related question of how the world’s population will live and wants to live in the future. Speakers will include Frédérique Aït-Touati, Franco Farinelli, Hélène Guenin, Francesca von Habsburg, Graham Harman, Yuko Hasegawa, Bruno Latour, and Peter Weibel.

On the same weekend, Mirai Moriyama, artist of the ZKM exhibition New Sensorium (until September 4), will perform his work Upload a New Mind to the Body on Saturday, April 16 at 6pm and on Sunday, April 17 at 5pm.

Reset Modernity! is shown in cooperation with Sciences Po and Critical Media Lab Basel; it is supported by Institut Français, Hauser & Wirth and the European Research Council.

Participating artists
Lisa Bergmann & Alina Schmuch / Jean-Joseph Baléchou / Hicham Berrada / Bureau d’Études / Kees Boeke / Emma Charles / Tacita Dean / Albrecht Dürer / Charles & Ray Eames / Folder (Marco Ferrari, Elisa Pasqual) & Alessandro Busi, Aaron Gillett, Pietro Leoni, Delfino Sisto Legnani, Alessandro Mason, Angelo Semeraro, Livia Shamir / Jean-Michel Frodon & Agnès Devictor / Peter Galison, Robb Moss & students / Fabien Giraud / Sylvain Gouraud / Pierre Huyghe / Andrés Jaque, Office for Political Innovation / Pauline Julier / Armin Linke / Adam Lowe / David Maisel / John Martin / Anne-Sophie Milon & Jan Zalasiewicz / Lorenza Mondada, Nicolle Bussien, Sara Keel, Hanna Svensson & Nynke van Schepen / Ahmet Ögüt / Véréna Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor / Elke Evelin Reinhuber / Sophie Ristelhueber / Philippe Squarzoni / Simon Starling / Thomas Struth / Sarah Sze / Thomas Thwaites / Unknown Field Division (Liam Young and Kate Davies) / Benoît Verjat & Donato Ricci / Jeff Wall