June 30–August 15, 2021
FAKE ME HARD focuses on a society increasingly defined by algorithmic logic, data extraction and fake news. 40 international artists make the complex world tangible through large-scale installations, performances, games, transforming AVL Mundo in Rotterdam into a place where the impact of technology on our lives is analyzed and turned inside out. The exhibition reflects on how people and technology can co-evolve.
FAKE ME HARD illustrates the temptations and threats to societies that are colonized by big tech. Humans and technology are inextricably linked, but we now have lost control. This leads to insights (were we ever in control?), but also presents us with new challenges. In exchange for convenience, we have all been made into raw material at the service of new masters. We will have to reconstruct our identity, integrity and create room to maneuver in a language of ones and zeros that is no longer our own. Deepfakes and conspiracy theories put us on the wrong track, while the myths and stories we connect with have difficulty surviving.
FAKE ME HARD lets you see and experience how the “post-truth” society touches us on a deep and existential level. Rather than an “us” versus “them” discourse on who holds the truth, a deeper concern is growing: the realization that algorithmic logic is slowly but surely undermining our way of making meaning. FAKE ME HARD does not take a stand against technology, but shows how moving with and talking back to artificial intelligence (AI) helps us develop new 21st-century skills. We want to invest not only in making people robot-proof, but also, especially, in making AI and algorithms “human aware.”
In FAKE ME HARD, Team Human shows its colorful diversity, flexibility & resilience.
Click here for the trailer video.
Participating artists and performers
Tatsuru Arai, BBB_, Beeple Felix Burger, Artur van Balen, Jeroen Jongeleen, J & B, Pinar Demirdag, Mary Maggic, Johan Grimonprez, Jelle de Graaf, Joey Holder, Viviane Komati, Joep van Lieshout, Daito Manabe, Deborah Mora, Herbert Luciole, Marnix de Nijs, Eli Joteva, Provides Ng, Ya nzi, Julie Patard, Jon Rafman, Tabita Rezaire, Saint Machine, Boer & Smeenk, Joris Strijbos, Rob Voerman, ViaOral, Wermke Leinkauf, Frederik de Wilde, Lu Yang, Yes Men, Pinar Yoldas, Liam Young.
BBB_ performance
Artist duo BBB_ confronts us with a gameworld in which the boundaries between our physical bodies and their digital twins have faded. Songs of Cyborgeoisie is an interactive journey through virtual landscapes where various technical, organic, and fantastic beings roam. Each one of these science-fiction-like creatures represents a different vision on the technological future. As this future is approaching, the figures share the sorrows, traumas and hopes inscribed into them by their human inventors.
In their hybrid musical performance BBB_ invite the visitors as avatars. Together, they create an environment in which technologies, people, flora & fauna can evolve harmoniously in dialogue. Human and non-human comfort each other and merge.
Podcast on deception
FAKE ME HARD offers a hands-on approach for navigating a complex reality. The podcast On Deception shares how we have always lived-in post-truth societies and reflects on finding new commons of truth and how benevolent fakes can transform society for the good. With a.o. Douglas Ruskoff, Edward Akin Hubbard, Lotte Willemsen.
Educational program
The FakeMeHardcore games are all about big data, algorithms, deepfakes and fake news in the 21st century and offer escape routes for young and old.
International Media Manager
Martine Willekens, martine [at] fakemehard.nl
