It’s a very exciting moment at The Serpentine
because we decided to put technology
and science center stage
to really explore the relationship with
Art and technology.
Paul Klee, the legendary early 20th century
artist, was a very big influence on me,
and he wrote that art's role
is to make the invisible visible.
When I saw the building and the galleries
for the first time,
it was immediately obvious to me
that this location is unique.
And I wanted to do a show that both reacts
to the park itself
but also to its geographical location
in one of the most
unequal boroughs in Europe.
Hito Steyerl's series of projects
at the Serpentine Galleries
take us their starting point; power
as a necessary condition
for any digital technology.
Within the gallery there is
different aspects merging into one another.
First of all, there are testimonies
by the NGO's we have been working with.
What does the park look like from
the perspective of domestic workers?
How does it feel if you happen to be
a disabled person for example?
We wanted to have a way
to bring those really important,
embodied stories of inequality
into the center, into the heart
of the exhibition itself.
So we have a series of videos
that are called Power Walks
which really bring to life
the research and the data
that you can find through
the Actual Reality app.
Each of the videos is a ten-minute extract
of what you would hear
if you were on the walk.
Many of these stories have been collected
and they are merged with another
series of works
which are video sculptures,
which show flowers
that have been predicted into the future
by artificial intelligence.
The exhibition design is taking,
as a starting point,
the idea of a Ruderal Future Garden.
The Ruderal Garden imagines
what plants would look like
in the wake of human disruption.
What would our future be after an event
that has been disastrous or apocalyptic?
On these scaffold structures you have plants,
that are blooming and closing
in different colors and shapes.
But these are all flowers and plants
that have been generated
using predictive technology.
Hito Steyerl is using the properties
of augmented reality
through the camera of a mobile device.
It gives you a view
of the Serpentine Galleries building
distorted in relation to
local inequality data.
To give you a visualization of what
the social reality in this area
really looks like.
Hito uses technology,
she uses her exhibitions, but also the app
to basically make this invisible
aspect of the city visible.
Even is exhibitions in the 21st century are
more and more addressing all the senses,
it's important that they are not
overpowering the viewer.
You know we very much believe
in what Marsel Dushan said.
The viewer should be enabled.
The viewer should do half of the work.
And that's why I think it's very exciting
that we find a way to do these exhibitions
but in a way that gives the viewer space.
And I think that's a very important aspect.
I would say I didn't have any expectations
and somehow it's managed to top
all of my expectations.
It's genuinely incredible and someone
can genuinely be proud to be a part of.
A lot of this project is around
the idea of the future,
mixing that with our reality today.
It's about creating new worlds
and creating new visions for the world.
So I feel like there's this idea that,
you leave the show with a much more
complex understanding
of the city that you live in.
And some seeds for a more imaginative way
to step into the future.
