On a recent trip to New York City, I visited the New Museum for the New Humans: Memories of the Future exhibition.
The exhibition explores our changing definition of humanity in times of technological advancement. That includes tech from the past as well as visions of the future, and where humanity might go from here.
The exhibition was a vast, multi-story affair. I was there for several hours taking it all in. It held a wide range of different works, from Dalí’s Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man to H. R. Giger’s Necronom xenomorph sculpture. From Alison Knowles’ The House of Dust Edition poem-generating dot matrix printer to Anicka Yi’s In Love with the World floating machine installation.
I carried my notebook through the museum with me, sketching whatever I wanted to spend more time with. Sketching in the museum allows me to experience an artwork in a new way, tracing the edges with my eye and my pencil. I notice the way lines intersect, and try to understand proportions. And I get a new layer of insight into the artistic process.
At first glance, the exhibition seems to be about our current moment of rapid AI development. In fact, that’s what drew me to see it, at the end of an intense two weeks of AI training for work. But the diverse ages of artworks reminded me that artists have been working with and talking about technology (including generative technology) for a long time. This vast exhibition, charting artists’ conversations with technology and its impact on humanity, shows that this moment is just one moment on a continuum through time.
Image at top: Vera Molnár, Lettres de ma mere (Letters from my mother), 1988-90
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