Sometime in the future, in a world that no longer belongs to humans (if it ever even has), the abandoned urban infrastructure has been swallowed by nature. Moss, fungi and lichens cover the ruins of abandoned residential, administrative and shopping complexes. The dilapidated walls of former museums, archives and libraries can no longer protect what's inside them. The information recorded in books, hard drives and other media sinks into oblivion as the physical carriers decay. Together with the Western understanding of the world, compost made of paper, wood and even metal is now fertilising the land on which new, non-human information systems are spreading. Densely intertwined mycelium and plant roots have replaced the fibre optic cables buried deep in the ground that used to transmit information from the world wide web.
In this post-apocalyptic world, the random discovery of a box with copies of the Drift Tengoku and Thrasher magazines from the 1990s has led to the creation of a new hybrid form of an archive and life. The magazines have been found by an insectoid cyborg – a fungus-biorobot in the form of an insect that uses its mycelium network to explore, arrange and process the found artefacts and reinterpret the previous life on Earth. Based on the magazines, which focused on the subcultures of automobile drifting and the skateboarding, it builds its own museum and creates new hybrid creatures that take care of their own ecosystems and form a complex collection of life forms in which technology is combined with nature. The collection is reminiscent of those at natural science and art history museums; however, the cyborg's non-hierarchical scientific approach differs significantly from the once established Western research methods, which were rooted in colonialism and exploitation. The dynamic and distorted images of the past created by the biorobot make up a diorama of one possible future –a world without human supremacy full of potential, in which a series of unusual beings coexist in a harmonic balance.
Artist: knnz (Neža Knez)
Curated by: Urška Aplinc and Lara Reichmann
MGBS curator: Vladimir Vidmar
Production: Urška Aplinc (SCCA-Ljubljana)
Sound equipment for the exhibition: Kristjan Kovač (Nice Trick)
Production of cast items and consulting: Tajda Novšak
Consulting: Lara Plavčak
Special thanks to: Galerija Škuc, RogLab/Kreativni center Rog, Rea Vogrinčič, Maj Vogrinčič
Organisation: SCCA-Ljubljana and Banka Slovenije’s Mala galerija (Little Gallery)
Co-producer: Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana
Supported by: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, City of Ljubljana – Department of Culture
VR installation sponsor: CtrlArt d. o. o.
