Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar: This Is Not A Love Show
World premiere: January 26, 2022, Kraftwerk Berlin
Over the past two months, LAS has hosted a series of performances by choreographer Sharon Eyal and co-creator Gai Behar at Kraftwerk Berlin, which served as a platform for Eyal & Behar to develop new work in dialogue with the architecture of the iconic space. This residency culminates in the premiere of a new commissioned piece by L-E-V Dance Company that will premiere on 26 January 2022, featuring live performances in three acts by musicians CURL, Koreless and DJ Ori Lichtik. Guest curated by Claude Adjil, assisted by Sophie Korschildgen.
Libby Heaney: Ent-
February 10–April 3, 2022, Schering Stiftung, Berlin
Ent- is an immersive installation that takes quantum computing as both medium and subject matter. Commissioned by LAS the work explores the transformative changes that quantum computing is expected to bring to everyday life. Libby Heaney is the only artist in the world using quantum computing as a functioning artistic medium. Ent- is her quantum interpretation of the central panel of Hieronymus Bosch’s famous triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights. Visitors will enter a black cube in which a 360-degree projection takes them through the layers of Bosch’s painting – sky, buildings, landscapes and water. Heaney has conceived an entirely new plural visual language, only possible using quantum computing, which manipulates and animates her own watercolour paintings to create hybrid creatures, landscapes that seem to shift and breathe, and exploding structures that float and re-form. Bosch’s adjacent depictions of heaven and hell provide an analogue for the double-edged nature of quantum computing, which has the potential both to accelerate surveillance capitalism exponentially and disrupt encryption methods, as well as to instil what Heaney calls ‘quantum thinking’, which would break down binary paradigms and combat political polarisation.
Ian Cheng: Life After BOB
June–September 2022, Halle am Berghain, Berlin
Life After BOB is an episodic anime series by artist Ian Cheng that imagines a future world in which our minds are co-inhabited by AI entities. LAS presents episode one, The Chalice Study, the story of a neural engineer Dr Wong who installs an experimental AI named BOB (Bag of Beliefs) into the nervous system of his 10-year-old daughter Chalice. Designed to guide Chalice through growing up, BOB confronts more and more challenges on her behalf, while Chalice grows increasingly escapist. As Dr Wong begins to favour BOB over Chalice, and as BOB threatens to do the job of living Chalice’s life better than she can, Chalice wonders what is left for her human self to do. Life After BOB was built in the Unity game engine and is presented live in real-time. In parallel with a cinematic presentation, an interactive presentation will allow viewers to pause and explore each scene at their own pace. Viewers will also be invited to learn more – and make edits – at the Life After BOB wiki, which catalogues characters, artifacts, flora and fauna. User edits will permanently modify the details of the onscreen world, making Life After BOB a new form of programmable narrative media. Co-commissioned by LAS, Luma Foundation and The Shed.
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg: Pollinator Pathmaker
Fall 2022, Berlin
LAS is collaborating with Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg on the first international edition of Pollinator Pathmaker, an art-led campaign to save bees and other endangered pollinating insects. There has been a dramatic decline in pollinating insects in the last 40 years due to habitat loss, pesticides, invasive species and climate change. Originally commissioned by the Eden Project in Cornwall, Ginsberg plans to grow a network of gardens around the world and LAS will present the first international garden. A living artwork for - rather than about - pollinators, Pollinator Pathmaker invites us to see the world through the eyes of pollinators, asking ‘can the audience of an artwork be more than human?’ The garden is designed, planted and optimised for pollinators’ tastes, using a specially designed algorithm and a curated palette of plants. Visitors are also encouraged to design their own pollinator-friendly, locally appropriate gardens, making use of Ginsberg’s unique algorithm and the launch of a new plant palette for the Berlin region on the website pollinator.art.
About LAS
LAS is a Berlin-based art foundation that brings together art, technology and science. Committed to new ways of presenting art, LAS commissions experimental projects, both physical and digital, in unconventional spaces. LAS is dedicated to future thinking, and light is the foundation’s guiding principle – a symbol of imagination, discovery and innovation.
