Haus der Kunst

WangShui’s practice explores various dimensions of human-machine entanglement through video, sculpture and painting. The exhibition has been developed as a form of screenplay in which the machine has become the scriptwriter, applying countless variations of its training material. Featuring their newly commissioned live simulation Certainty of the Flesh (2023) alongside a selection of ethereal paintings etched into aluminium, Window of Tolerance reflects our symbiosis with the technologies that are now determining our lives.

The centrepiece of the exhibition is the video simulation Certainty of the Flesh. The title is a reference to the superhuman body-knowledge found in the alien flesh of Octavia E. Butler’s science fiction book series set in the 2020s, Xenogesis (1987– 1989). In WangShui’s work, displayed across a triptych of layered LED screens, the audience encounters multiplicitous beings whose interactions are driven by a computer programme – a neural network trained using deep reinforcement learning (Deep RL). The avatars’ morphing bodies represent the five phases (water, wood, fire, earth, and metal) of Wu Xing philosophy. Their movements are based on gestures performed by WangShui and fellow artists who’s body language was recorded with motion capture, impersonating archetypes from reality television and ancient mythologies. Scripted and unscripted reality blur as the “artificial drama” develops in realtime.

Introducing new modes of image making, the aluminium paintings are cocreated by the artist and their machine learning system through a process of both programmed and improvisational methods, in a recursive feedback loop. The paintings can be understood as a translation between human and machine vision with the scratches in the aluminium representing the “latent space”, in which hidden relationships in data are revealed based on the position and perspective of the observer.

Andrea Lissoni, Artistic Director, Haus der Kunst, said: “WangShui works on future technological extensions of the body, of the self, and on evolving means of interpersonal communication. Their experimentation with machine learning and their use of neural networks to create other worldly personalities challenges representation, be in painting, be in moving-images works. Whilst giving voice to communities in the making, WangShui propels the legacy of immersive environments into new radical digital universes.“

WangShui. Window of Tolerance has been programmed alongside and in dialogue with Inside Other Spaces. Environments by Women Artists 1956–1976 (8 September 23–10 March 24) to provide a contemporary perspective to the concurring landmark exhibition at Haus der Kunst. This exhibition reframes the artistic canon by presenting women’s fundamental role in the development of immersive art between the 1950s and 1970s, which at the time was referred to as environments, and which have gone on to have a lasting impact in the field of visual art.

Curated by Sarah Johanna Theurer and Teresa Retzer.