​What will our future look like — not in a century but in a mere two decades? Technological innovation is accelerating at a pace we’ve yet to fully comprehend. In an age of algorithms and technology that could see us transformed into “superhumans” with godlike qualities, what lies ahead is a world potentially unrecognizable to ours. Will automation and artificial intelligence create a “global class of citizens without utility”? Will new technologies continue to hijack democracy? How will technology be wielded as a tool of discrimination, not against groups but against individuals? The year 2020 marks the 70th anniversary of the landmark paper Can machines think? first asked by Alan Turing, the creator of modern computing and pioneer of artificial intelligence.

This exhibition serves as a stark reminder that, for all the colossal technological advances made in recent decades, mankind today will seem primitive compared to the world of the not-so-distant future—dominated by artificial intelligence, big data, nanotech, and biotech.

The visionary science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, best known for the novel and film 2001: A Space Odyssey once said about man’s search for evidence of life beyond this Earth: “Our technology must still be laughably primitive, we may be like jungle savages listening for the throbbing tom-toms while the ether around them carries more words per second than they could utter in a lifetime.” 

The objective of this exhibition is to create a platform for artists in the fields of new media and emerging technologies to explore these and other questions. Artists were invited to imagine and create different economic, political, and social futures, with viewpoints both optimistic and nihilistic. 

Artists:

Richard Garet | Juan Betancurt | Daniel Neumann | Yucef Mehri | Fito Segrera | Carla Gannis | Mattia Casalegno | Jonathan Monaghan | Juan Cortés | Leonel Vásquez | Miguel Kuan | Samanta Garcia | Adriana Marmorek | Jorge Barco | Alba Triana | Solimán López| Rocio Pardo| Daniela Dominguez|Ricardo Arias| | Juan Garcia Ortíz.