NOX
October 27, 2023–January 14, 2024
Joachimsthalerstraße 7
10623 Berlin
Germany
LAS Art Foundation presents “NOX: Impulses” as part of the current exhibition Lawrence Lek: NOX.
Artist Lawrence Lek’s largest and most ambitious exhibition to date unfolds over three floors of the Kranzler Eck complex in Berlin’s Charlottenburg district. Combining locative audio, CGI video, installation and gaming, NOX guides audiences through an hour-long narrative that imagines the psychological consequences of a future filled with smart systems and sentient machines. The exhibition comes to ask fundamental questions about life in the age of advanced automation.
NOX has served as a catalyst for an array of critical discussions about our collective futures with AI. On the exhibition’s opening day, Lawrence Lek spoke in conversation with Prof Iyad Rahwan (Director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Founder and Director of the Center for Humans & Machines) about the co-evolution of humans and AI from artistic and scientific perspectives. These debates continue through the exhibition’s duration, with contributions from revered specialists in areas such as AI training and ethics, smart cities and non-human personhood in the ongoing “NOX” Impulses” series and two talks to take place in the exhibition’s final week.
“NOX: Impulses”
Shaped by researchers and practitioners from various fields, “NOX: Impulses” are a series of discursive exchanges which approach Lek’s work from a wide range of perspectives. As part of their visit to the exhibition, visitors can participate in readings, presentations and discussions.
Programme dates
December 13, 2023, 3:30–5pm
Producing NOX with Alexis Convento and Harriet Collins (LAS Art Foundation)
In this impulse, LAS project manager Alexis Convento and producer Harriet Collins provide insights into the creation of this site-specific project, the particularities of an immersive exhibition in historic architecture and the challenges and potentialities of presenting media art.
January 4, 2024, 5–6:30pm
Cinema by Other Means with Prof Kathi Kæppel (Berlin University of the Arts)
Kathi Kæppel elaborates the unique forms of cinematic storytelling Lek employs in NOX. How does a cinematic experience change when it unfolds across spatial and sonic realms? How are game engines changing film and video production?
January 9, 2024, 3:30–5pm
Hacking the Smart City—Cyberfeminist Resistance with Maja-Lee Voigt (Leuphana University Lüneburg)
Maja-Lee Voigt looks at possibilities of resistance in the face of growing automation and its ties to systems of control. How can we counter developments capable of turning the smart city into a place of algorithmic oppression? And can we ensure that the smart city, this future-oriented idea of urban life, belongs to us all?
Past impulses include a discussion with smart city designer Anja Lüttmann from CityLAB Berlin, who offered insights into NOX’s smart city. In her presentation, she explored the question of what a smart future for our cities could look like and how we can shape it.
Founding director of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) Prof Dr Wolfgang Wahlster addressed questions on forms of learning used in artificial intelligence and how we can ensure that AI remains manageable for us humans.
Charmaine Poh and Park Hye-in from the Asian Feminist Studio for Art and Research (AFSAR) explored and decoded a number of references to East Asian philosophical thinking in NOX, drawing from the work of Hong Kong philosopher Yuk Hui.
All events take place at the exhibition (Kranzler Eck, Joachimsthaler Straße 7, 10623 Berlin). Additional information on “NOX: Impulses” can be found here. To participate in our upcoming events, please select the corresponding time slot in the ticket shop.
Further discursive programming to be announced soon.
About Lawrence Lek
Lawrence Lek is an artist, filmmaker and musician who unifies diverse practices—architecture, gaming, video, music and fiction—into a continuously expanding cinematic universe. Over the last decade, Lek has incorporated vernacular media of his generation, such as video games and computer-generated animation, into site-specific installations and digital environments, which he describes as “three-dimensional collages of found objects and situations.” Often featuring interlocking narratives and the recurring figure of the wanderer, his work explores the myth of technological progress in an age of social change.
About LAS Art Foundation
LAS Art Foundation works with visionary artists to give form to future imaginaries. We commission exhibitions, performances and experimental formats that bring new perspectives to critical subjects of our times, from artificial intelligence, gaming and quantum computing to ecology and biotechnology.
