Arrival

LOOKNOW Anfu Road concept store "&FLOW", which is derived from the homophonic of "Anfu", also means "A flow feast" (flowing feast), which means opening a very guerrilla in the commercial and cultural district with the most pioneering youth temperament in China. , an urban fashion cultural experiment with mobility and street attributes. The space's first experimental art exhibition presents the installation and sculptures by artist Tian Mu. His practice involves mediums such as painting, sculpture, video, and installation, exploring the limits of humans and the material world, as well as the feelings of the individual spirit, by exploring materials and technical production methods. The artist's work breaks the stereotyped thinking of materials and associated impressions and re-endows materials with new properties and definitions, which coincides conceptually with the fluidity and openness of space. With the continuous advancement of network technology, artificial intelligence, and mechanical manufacturing technology, people's speculation and imagination about the future life form have gradually taken shape in the post-epidemic era. It is not difficult to find Practical similar evidence for Cartesian dualism from smartphones to the metaverse. Ray Kurzweil (Ray Kurzweil) made a bold prediction in his classic book "The Singularity Is Nearer" - that machines will replace the organs of human information processing and execution, that is, embedded. The knowledge and skills of the brain will be combined with the human-created intelligence of greater capacity, speed, and knowledge sharing. Combined with the ongoing discussions on current cutting-edge scientific and technological issues, this exhibition will conduct analytical thinking on embodied and spiritual cognition through four installations by Tian Mu. Based on Machine and AI Ethics, the artist's works re-examine the relationship between humans and machines in the current society based on eliminating the boundaries between devices and organic matter, virtual stories, and reality, and further discuss the download of freedom of consciousness and the Possibility of body form. In "Chupacabra" (2021), Tian Mu associates with the current global epidemic of infectious viruses from South American legends and the research on legend prototypes. Since then, he has emphasized the fragility of the organism and raised questions about the future form of survival. As the stairs go up, "Brain 01" (2019) and "Medusa" (2019) both discuss the symbiosis and domestication relationship between humans and machines. In these two works, there is no strictness with practical results. The definition enables a new order to be created, to achieve harmony and equality between "things" and "people", "nature" and "people" in concept. In the final "Arrival" (2021), the focus is returned to subjective feelings, emphasizing the independence of subject consciousness and the infinite fantasy of the possibility of life after breaking the constraints of form. The exhibition finally settled on "Arrival"; the city has experienced an unusual common encounter, in which we also seem to be able to empathize with the artist's work - as Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am", breaking the shackles of form with infinite thoughts may be the way out to "freedom", thus giving hope to the future. (Text/Gina Tan)