INSIDE ECOLOGIES – Umwelt als Interaktion
with works by Julius von Bismarck, Julian Charrière, Raphael Brunk, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, CMUK, Jan Dibbets, Thimo Franke, Mona El Gammal, Taka Kagitomi, Conrad Kürzdörfer/Brian Holden, Richard Long, Lisa Rave, Pankoke/Schmidt, Katie Paterson, Jorinde Voigt, Morgenvogel Real Estate
Sept 14 – Nov 04, 2018
Welkunstzimmer, Düsseldorf, Germany

The exhibition Inside Ecologies brings together artistic positions that explore the relationship between humans and the environment in natural and digital ecosystems. Untouched landscapes, appropriated areas and digital worlds become places of interaction between man, nature and technology. How do we move within natural and digital ecosystems? How do we relate to the environment and its non-human actors? How can cross-species collaborations between humans, animals or machines look like? How do we encounter digital actors who make their own decisions? How can we integrate into sustainable cycles as resources and habitats become scarcer? How is our image of nature and the environment changing in increasingly digital ecosystems? What are their conditions and what are the power relationships behind them?

“Everything is interconnected: such is the principle of principles of ecology.” Based on this fundamental ecological principle, Frédéric Neyrat explores the interactions between living beings and their inanimate environment. As early as the 1970s, art movements such as Land Art, Environmental Art and Conceptual Art addressed the interplay of man and environment beyond the White Cube. Landscapes and entire ecosystems become part of the work of art in various forms of expression – as temporary markings, permanent settlements or critical interventions. Even though some of man’s actions have far-reaching consequences, he is not the only creator of the environment. Plants and animals, machines or robots, local resources, climatic conditions, technical developments or cultural artefacts all shape the common environment. Sensitisation for the logics, conditions and needs of their respective inhabitants inside seems unavoidable. The artists in the exhibition question interacting environments in the form of conceptual references, sculptural objects, digital imagery, cross-species collaborations, performative virtual reality installations and ecological experimental spaces. Which cycles, networks of relationships and interdependencies exist? Which will be new and which are threatening to disappear?