A000000000001000AA011 by Lilia Li-Mi-Yan & Katherina Sadovsky
Date: 2020-2022
Media: Video, 3D, CGI, sound, AI
Link to Lilia Li-Mi-Yan
Link to Katherina Sadovsky
In A000000000001000AA011, we explore the possibility of human interaction and connection with other forms of existence. What would happen if we had new bodies, created through interaction with new technologies, materials, bacteria? Would we be eternal, or would we remain the same? We are concerned with the questions: what will happen to the emotions of the post-human, the cyborg-human? Will we be able to refuse to reproduce ourselves?
The characters in this video are equipped with special implants and an additional organ system that allows them to survive in their sci-fi modern world, where many environmental disasters have occurred. Powerful CO2 emissions into the atmosphere have led to global warming, and viruses have destroyed an ordinary biological body, forcing it to adapt to current conditions. The body of a new person, a posthuman, has learned to reproduce the critical organ systems and has also become something like a farm for growing cells and cellular organoids to create the same organs. Advances in technology and biotechnology have allowed the posthuman to survive in the most challenging conditions, reanimate the dead body and grow food with the help of innovative 3D printers and incubators. The posthuman possesses new systems of perception and feeling. For example, a system of increased empathy allows you to feel the emotional and physical state of people like him and "Inhumans". Brain mapping and emulation capabilities will enable new humans to be eternal as a neural network in digital reality or have an augmented biological body.
These characters are concerned with the same questions as us: the rights of the posthuman, if an individual can dispose of their death, if it is possible not to die anymore, love, responsibility, the possibility of reproduction and the transmission of their genes, whether children can be conceived, carried, and born outside the body.
We look closely and see something like tumors, cosmetic deformities, and parasitic (possibly symbiotic) collaborations with something organic. At the same time, we see that the subjects-carriers do not feel uncomfortable from such a neighborhood on their body.
The posthuman escapes the lifetime of his civilization. Objectively, the nervous system's plasticity is faster than technological evolution, and yesterday's demonization of information speed is not a biological but a cultural problem.
The slow social evolution we are witnessing in this sci-fi universe is politically conditioned: the current government in any country is interested in slowing down. That is why it is most willing to introduce updated protocols and security strategies. Through them, society learns patterns leading to social stagnation.
The Artists:
Lilia Li-Mi-Yan (1971) and Katherina Sadovsky (1985) are a Russian artistic duo working together since 2016.
Their diverse approach to art practice encompasses art media such as video, CGI, 3D, sculpture, photography, AI, installation, sound, site-specific practices.
In their projects, Li-Mi-Yan and Sadovsky explore questions of the future, ecology, the relationship between humans and Nature, the possibilities of human interaction and connection with other forms of existence.
What happens if we, as a species, have a new body created in interaction with new technologies, materials, bacteria? Will we be eternal, and will we remain the same people? What will happen to the emotions of the new human, posthuman, cyborg...? Will we be able to refuse to reproduce ourselves? Given the rise of medicine and biotechnology, our emotional development is frozen in the capsule of our ancestors. Today we are still hunters and gatherers.
Artists critically analyze these issues, inconveniently intruding into nature with digital images on polymer materials, comparing this art gesture with the attitude of humanity towards non-human agents and the biosphere in general.