The Somatist, the Entropist, and the Skeptic is a research and artistic production project at the intersection of art and science, materializing in a collective and participatory installation that involves the audience in the creative process. The artists involved in the project – Floriama Candea, Sabina Suru and Catalin Cretu – propose an exploration of how new technologies impact people not only on a physical level but also psychologically and relationally, questioning the extent to which their well-being is or is not closely related to technology.
We are surrounded by technology, but we have an ambivalent relationship with it - on the one hand, we are accustomed to how it facilitates our comfort and (re)shapes our social dynamics, and on the other hand, with an implicit distance attached to the use of technology as a relational medium. Does the way we position ourselves in this relationship have the capacity to determine future technological situations or objects? In other words, can technology be a pretext for speculations about the future, or is it rather an evolutionary process involving variation and selection similar to the natural world?
The Somatist, the Entropist, and the Skeptic offers an experience of deciphering the reaction we have in interacting with technology. Visitors will enter a world that challenges them to consider the extent to which they fear losing control over their digital personas (avatars), where images, objects, and sounds become either a soothing expansion of individual and collective consciousness or reflections of our physiological state or simple mutations in a human chain very similar to a blockchain.
MEET THE ARTISTS
Floriama Cândea
Floriama Candea explores the dynamics between objects and the way we perceive them by creating hybrid visual identities. Her versatile toolkit spans interactive, kinetic, and video installations to sculpture, experimental electronics, drawing, and printing, with an additional focus on creating visuals using bio-based materials. With the complex relation between science, philosophy and tech, at the core of her artistic practice, she questions our role as well as the stakes of the Anthropocene, at the dawn of a possible new era.
Sabina Suru
Sabina Suru is a multimedia artist. Her work addresses issues related to identity mutation, objectification and exographic memory, rooted in the continuous connection between new and old technologies, between the digital and the analogue, orbiting silver-based, alternative and experimental photography and holography, respectively video and installation, while incorporating elements and concepts from science. She is currently engaged in a research on the history and appropriations of holographic technologies in performative and participatory practices.
Cătălin Crețu
Cătălin Crețu is a multimedia artist seamlessly blending his expertise in engineering with a profound passion for music. His body of work spans various genres, including chamber music, choral compositions, symphonic works, electronic music, computer-assisted music, interactive multimedia works, and more. Since 2008, Cătălin Crețu has been a scientific researcher at the Center for Electroacoustic Music and Multimedia and an associate lecturer at the National University of Music in Bucharest.
EXPO
WITH THE SUPPORT OF
Cultural project co-funded by The Administration of the National Cultural Fund (AFCN).
The project does not necessarily represent the position of The Administration of the National Cultural Fund.
AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or the manner in which the results of the project may be used.
These are entirely the responsibility of the funding recipient.
