Shane Hope in "Transhuman Conditions" @ Arlington Arts Center

If you're in the DC area, be sure not to miss the opening tonight!

Transhuman Conditions @ Arlington Arts Center

Show Dates: January 29 – April 3, 2010

Opening Reception: Friday, January 29, 6 – 9 pm

Transhuman Conditions features ten artists thinking about the future of the human body. Their work reveals both fantasies and nightmares of radical changes on the horizon for all of us—from the promise of immortality; to the ability to augment or redesign one’s own brain, limbs, or skin; to the promise of escaping one’s body altogether, becoming pure intelligence floating free in a virtual world.

Though these changes may sound like pure science fiction, to a certain extent, they’ve already happened, and are now part of our banal day to day existence. Today, amputee runners are barred from athletic competition because their prosthetic legs are declared unfair advantages, not hindrances. Websites exist that continue a person's e-mail correspondence and internet activity after death. People meet, befriend one another, and date over long distances via social networking platforms. What at one point might have seemed like fantasy is now just the business of contemporary living. The ten artists in this show take this fact as their starting point.

The show is accompanied by a catalogue, featuring essays by Joel Garreau, senior writer for the Washington Post and author of the book Radical Evolution, and the show's curator, AAC Director of Exhibitions Jeffry Cudlin.

The roster for the show is: Arakawa and Gins, CarianaCarianne, Laure Drogoul, Shane Hope, Jason Horowitz, Ivan Lozano, Shana Moulton, Geoffrey Alan Rhodes, Philip Warnell, and Saya Woolfalk.

Arakawa and Gins (NYC) are architects/poets/scientists/philosophers who use architectural procedures as a means for retraining organisms in order to extend their lives.

CarianaCarianne (Chicago) is an artist who has attempted to reclassify herself legally as two people sharing one body.

Laure Drogoul (Baltimore, MD) is known for projects that explore everything from the history of railroads and industry, to late 19th century spiritualism, to projects exploring how earthworms "hear" sounds through their skin. She will offer a new project featuring video on multiple small monitors and voice activated feedback loops.

Shane Hope (NYC) creates letters written by children in a far flung transhuman future, and MOL-MOD drawings and prints featuring signifiers from the world of nanotechnology and biological research. Shane appears courtesy of Winkleman Gallery.

Jason Horowitz (Arlington, VA) uses technology to transform the body into abstract terrain. The AAC will be premiering Horowitz’s new wall-filling 8’ X 10’ prints mounted on metal.

Ivan Lozano (Austin, Texas) uses found video and audio to meditate on queer identity and a possible post-gendered future.

Shana Moulton (NYC) is a video artist whose alter ego, Cynthia, attempts to find enlightenment through the intersection of new age spiritualism, technology, and trepanation.

Geoffrey Alan Rhodes (Toronto/NY) will be installing his mixed media video installation, Mirror Series, in which the artist interacts with electronically altered images of himself.

Philip Warnell (UK) is an artist and filmmaker. For his performance project, ENDO/ECTO, Warnell swallowed a small endoscopic camera, and a team of scientists, artists, and musicians analyzed and interpreted the imagery that the camera produced as it passed through his body.

Saya Woolfalk (NYC) makes drawings and videos about a future utopian civilization, No Place, in which people and plants share genetic material.