The Informed Body

The NODE15 exhibition ‘The Informed Body’ brought together works of art and design, exploring the past and the present of the complex interdependence between the human body and technology.

A line up of international artists created utopian and dystopian body images, gave insight into recent technical potentialities and offered tactics for critical and playful uses of ubiquitous technologies.

 

At the heart of the festival, the exhibition materialized the leitmotif and challenged the understanding of “one’s own body”. The artworks on display negotiated the impact of digital transformation on human (physical) interaction by debating the simultaneity of distance and proximity that occurs when one reaches out to the other through digital media.

In the exhibition, one could explore what it means to be another person and investigate the promise of technology to transcend material boundaries. The urge to overcome physical limitations was discussed by artistic wearables, interactive installations and performances.

‘The Informed Body’ gathered works of art that addressed the gradual incorporation of instruments and processes into the body, gadgets and algorithms optimizing our daily life or virtual reality devices trying to connect our physical bodies to potentially any virtual space and time.

The body has been examined both as a source of information and as an object of optimization. The viewer was invited to engage in a mental and physical work-out. He was confronted with the relation of flesh and consciousness in the interdependent evolution of human kind and technology.

Artists

NODE15’s exhibition presented a mix of more than 50 international distinguished and upcoming digital artists from manifold backgrounds as well as designers and creative minds in general.

Antoni Rayzhekov, Amir Bastan, Aram Bartholl, BeAnotherLab, Carolin Liebl, Chris Sugrue, Depart, Georg Scherlin, Golan Levin, Gregor Woschitz,
Herwig Turk, IOCOSE, Jeremy Bailey,  Jörg Brinkmann, Katharina Köller, kling klang klong, Kyle McDonald, Lauren McCarthy, Lisa Bergmann, Nikolas Schmid-Pfähler, panGenerator, Quayola, schnellebuntebilder, Simon Renaud & Véronique Pêcheux, Stefan Tiefengraber, Susanna Hertrich, Woeishi Lean & Quadrature.

  • 50+ artists

  • 20+ artist talks

  • 3 panel discussions

  • free entry

  • 200 sqm area

Impressions

NODE15 invited more than 20 projects that investigate how the comprehension of the leitmotif ‘The Informed Body’ shape our perception and consciousness; how they alter communication and interaction with humans or machines. Coders, artists, scientists and developers quarrelled with the question, which significance to give to our flesh and shell called body. Among others:

 

Additional program

 
 

The curators’ voices

“The intention of the exhibition in general is to engage the audience with a question that is relevant to the society as a whole: How does the image of our own body change in interaction with technology?”

 

Jeanne Charlotte Vogt

Hamburg, Germany

Jeanne is a curator, NODE festival co-director, and university teacher in cultural sciences and media sociology. Trained in management theory, working in arts and culture, she embodies the multidisciplinary perspective in the team. Working and researching at the intersection between the arts and technology, her projects are always aiming at spreading the news to a broad audience.

In 2010, she graduated in business administration, intercultural management and economics at Friedrich-Schiller University Jena and Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy. From 2010-2013, Jeanne has been working as a researcher on cultural economics and consulting cultural organizations within the EU-funded regional development project „Innovation Incubator“ at Leuphana University Lüneburg. Jeanne is teaching at Leuphana and, in Summer 2016, in the global Goethe Institut online course “Managing the Arts in Times of Transition”.

As a curator, she is associated with Motion Bank (founded by The Forsythe Company), a project investigating the role of technology and coding practices in the field of contemporary dance and choreography. Jeanne is organizing the Choreographic Coding Lab series. As a curatorial team, Jeanne and Alexandra initiate projects that are located at the intersection between the arts and technology such as “A/D/A Tomorrow’s Utopia’s for Today’s Citizens” in Hamburg, a workshop festival on the digitization of urban space. In 2015, they have founded the Creative Technologies Meetup in Hamburg.

Alexandra Waligorski

Hamburg, Germany

Alexandra is an art historian, curator and art mediator. As a researcher she organized interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of art, science and academic education for the Leuphana Arts Program as well as the research project “Art and Civic Media” at the Leuphana University in Lüneburg. From 2010 to 2012 she was an art mediator and curatorial assistant at the Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art in Oldenburg. Based in Hamburg, she currently works as an independent curator and project manager. She is presently pursuing a PhD, exploring the entanglement of criticality, making and artistic practice.
Alex joined the NODE team in 2014 and co-curated the exhibitions “The Informed Body” and “Designing Hope” as well as the public and educational program of NODE15 and NODE17.