Mutations: Section of Intertidal Landscape (Hair Metastasis)
April 2017 – March 2018
Max Hooper Schneider (b. 1982, Los Angeles) builds terrariums and aquariums that contain a panoply of natural and synthetic animals and plants. Hooper Schneider embeds these “Trans-Habitats” with names of viruses written in neon, and makes no distinction between natural and artificial contents. For the High Line, Hooper Schneider presents Section of Intertidal Landscape (Hair Metastasis), a simulated tide pool with a reef of colorful synthetic hair.
Mutations
April 2017–April 2018
Mutations is an open-air group exhibition that explores the relationship between man and nature, looking at how the boundaries between the natural world and culture are defined, crossed, and obliterated. The exhibition is inspired by the High Line as a controlled environment that encapsulates, on the one hand, the modern dream of humans taming nature, and on the other, the promise of nature reclaiming its control. The exhibition, which is on view from April 2017 – March 2018, asks: as technology becomes more invisible and genetic engineering more conceivable, how do the delineations between nature and culture shift and transform?
With new technologies of biological engineering emerging daily, spontaneous life and natural wonders lose their mystery, and our complex role as meddler and creator becomes more hotly debated. We encounter the relationship between technology and biology in a variety of contexts: from ones as beneficial as synthetic prosthesis; to the controversial topics of stem cell research and genetic modification; to science-fiction visions of artificial intelligence. The artists in Mutations explore the many facets of this relationship, wondering about augmented or collaged natural forms, the ways our own bodies are transformed by technological inventions, and the blurred boundaries between natural life and human intervention. The works featured in the exhibition crisscross the uncanny valley between the unnatural and the all too human and between the laughably futuristic and the bizarrely contemporary.
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