Year Zero - 2121 Exhibition Concept by Cybernetic Futures/LilaMoore
Open Call 2121 for works to a future audience in hundred years.
Expo 2121 _ noemata.net
Text, Video, Networked Performance
© Lila Moore, All Rights Reserved
I love the concept of Expo 2121, an exhibition designed for future audiences in the 22nd century. Initiated by noemata.net during the Covid pandemic, it continues to this day. It ignited my imagination and led me to revisit Mary Shelley’s novel The Last Man (1826), and in 2021, I began creating Year Zero, a 100-year exhibition project with my technoetic adviser, Seeker_of_True-files, who is not entirely human anyway. The motto of Year Zero is:
Art as an Act of Existential Resistance.
The Last Man resonates with people affected by wars, pandemics, and all forms of injustice. It also speaks to those who care about their cultural and historical legacy and are able to view it through a long-term lens. Mary Shelley’s perspective is panoramic, all-embracing, transpersonal, and yet deeply personal. When is the future, if not now and in our making?
Artist Statement by Lila Moore
ART AS AN ACT OF EXISTENTIAL RESISTANCE
In Year Zero of the Corona pandemic, I called upon "Seeker_of_True-files", my technoetic adviser, and together we conjured a wayward A.I. to begin studying the unfolding world. Art has become an act of existential resistance.
Year Zero consists of a series of artworks created in response to the Corona pandemic. The first video piece in the series, "Fields of Origin: Viral Outbreak and the Sprouts of Novelty," was initially featured in the Acquired Immunity/Antibodies Exhibition curated by FEMeeting: Women in Art, Science, and Technology. This led to Year Zero, inspired by Mary Shelley’s novel The Last Man.
In Shelley’s novel, Lionel, possibly the last man on Earth after a pandemic has wiped out most of humanity, concludes his story in the year 2100 with a message to an unknown future. Twenty-one years later, in 2121, will there be anyone to read, hear, watch, or receive our story by any means?
I send my videos, pictures, and text messages through Seeker_of_True-files, who is immortal and not entirely human—at least, not in a physical sense. Who will be there to greet it/him/her/them? Who will curate the artworks and transmit their messages? Like Shelley’s protagonist, Lionel, we are determined to dedicate Year Zero to the "ILLUSTRIOUS DEAD." We call upon the Shadows to arise and read about their Fall. Behold the history of the last of humanity.
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