"LIFELIKE" Is an Exhibition Exploring Body Sovereignty During The New Era of the Internet
On view at Vellum LA until April 2, 2023.
Vellum LA hosts “LIFELIKE,” its latest group exhibition in collaboration with EPOCH Gallery and curated by Katie Peyton Hofstadter. “LIFELIKE” explores biology, genetics and behavioral information on a digital ledger through the work of ten artists, ultimately invoking an urgent conversation about body sovereignty in Web3.
The showcase takes Hofstadter’s text, Bodies on the Blockchain (2022), as a starting point, which discusses how despite the aspirational mythology of Web3 promises individuals more control, it does not distribute that power equally, perpetuating techno-capitalism’s colonial legacy. Besides, the new works by the showcased artists depict how information flows between our biological and virtual identities, examining the role and rights of all bodies in a hybrid world.
“Technology is moving into our bodies, and our bodies are moving into technology. The stakes are high: Will we double our health spans or create a techno-dystopian Gilead? The artists in this exhibition are interested in what it will mean, and how it will feel, to have a body in a future where wetware (living tissue) serves as a foundation for technology, where medical implants monitor our hearts and minds, and where decisions are made by programs none of us fully understand,” read the exhibition notes.
LIFELIKE is on view at Vellum LA until April 2, 2023. To find out more about the artworks showcased, visit this link.
Keep scrolling to learn more about Peyton Hofstadter’s views on having a body in a hybrid world and how the idea behind LIFELIKE materialize.
White Male Artist aka Cassils, Special $HT (2021-2023)
What does it mean to have a body in a hybrid world? We’d like to learn about your own personal answer to it.
Vulnerable. I believe we can only want what we can imagine, so the people thinking about our techno-present are critical right now. In the text and this series of LIFELIKE exhibitions, I talked to a dozen artists who are stress-testing the effects of technology on their own bodies. For me, it’s not about easy answers, but identifying better questions, first, which enables better framing and public discussions.
Today, our devices harvest information about our bodies and experience by default, and the consequences very much depend on who you are. AI-assisted surgeries will extend healthspans for some, while others are losing the right to make their own medical decisions. Even since I wrote this text, the EFF has sounded alarms on the “Unprecedented digital surveillance” on the bodies of women and abortion seekers in the U.S. This doesn’t stop with reproductive sovereignty. Transgender people seeking healthcare are losing rights, as are the families of trans children. The history of predatory surveillance is deeply tied to systemic racism, and new tools are positioned to supercharge this. It’s urgent to encode equitable human rights for all bodies, which must evolve and keep pace with the technology they use.
How? As a writer (not a scientist), I start with language because I know it frames the discussion. I think we should push back against calling human experience and information about our bodies “Data.” It turns our genetic information, biological information and experience into a property, which by default can be bought and sold. I prefer “Information flows,” a term advocated by Helen Nissenbaum. In a flow, you can give or rescind access for different purposes at different times. I’m also interested in co-construction, where users of technology are empowered to shape that technology.
Edgar Fabián Frías, Kïïka (2023)
We should be paying attention to new prototype brain-computer interface devices like the one Lans King uses to create a sculpture from his own brain data. How do we want to regulate the flow of our mental activity? Should it be treated (as is being proposed) as disembodied data, to be scraped and signed over via contracts no one can read or understand? Another artist that speaks to mental mapping is Edgar Fabián Frías. Frias is combining indigenous wisdom with internet subcultures, digital decay and glitch aesthetics, as a practice of mapping or locating oneself and the flow of one’s energy.
When an implantable brain-computer interface claims to turn mental energy into “Data,” we are told this information will be “Measurable” and “Useful;” these factors are taken seriously by the mainstream. But when indigenous voices, such as the Wixárika community, talk about mental energy — especially in the form of meaningful transcendental experiences — they are marginalized or fetishized, not treated with the same seriousness. I think both artists are helping to frame questions about how to talk about brain-computer devices and our so-called neuro data.
Xin Liu, When we were all Flowers (2022)
Why did it make sense to put together LIFELIKE? How did the idea materialize?
I like the questions the featured artists raise and the vocabulary they provide us with, which can help us form our own relationship with technology. With LIFELIKE I wanted to document that conversation, in my own way. When I wrote Bodies on the Blockchain, I could instantly see how many people thought these projects and the issues they were raising were important. Yet, in a single text, I could only include four artists if I wanted to go in-depth. So I had to cut some amazing projects.
When Peter Wu invited me to curate the first digital iteration, LIFELIKE x EPOCH, I was excited to include more voices and expand the conversation. Now, at Vellum LA, we have been able to further include a total of ten artists with new and expanded projects, as well as exhibit the entire interactive EPOCH experience for virtual walk-throughs inside the gallery. There are so many powerful works in this show, I feel moved by the opportunity to present them to a wider audience. It’s now also been picked by the Cal Poly University Gallery, which intends to showcase the exhibition to their community of 20,000 students in the fall.
Lauren Lee McCarthy, Sleepover (2023-Ongoing)
How do you think viewers will feel after visiting the showcase?
I think the work in LIFELIKE is very accessible. The issues the artists are dealing with are clear, they’re part of our lives. I hope you, the visitor, will come away empowered. But it isn’t simple: as you give yourself more time, each piece opens up a more complex space. And if you let yourself stay with this work, to really feel the tension — for example, how Lauren Lee McCarthy embodies digital intimacy or how Xin Liu presents her unique DNA as this startling and beautiful fecundity in a desert — I promise you will feel something pushback inside you.
To me, that’s always the key. Pay attention to what pushes back. Try to pause there, and explore that response. Where is it coming from? What is it saying? Can you stay in that startling or uncanny space as you consider your own place in the world? Or to envision a more compassionate future? I don’t want to guide that journey too much, as the art will speak for itself. But I do hope it’s an opportunity to slow down, to think about body sovereignty in our techno-future, with curious and intelligent voices all around you.
Sammie Veeler and Mistress Fix Impressions (2023)
