Emergent Conditions

How do the always evolving technological conditions we inhabit (re)configure coexistence between humans, synthetic agents, and their environments? And what emerges from these forms of wanted and unwanted interrelation?

Emergent Conditions brings together three works from the intersection of art and scientific research, touching on subjects from cybernetics and critical AI studies to quantum computing, compression technologies, neuroscience, and memory studies. The exhibition investigates possible forms of coexistence between human and synthetic agents, inviting speculative narratives about near futures. It reflects on the tensions and bridges emerging from new capacities acquired by synthetic agents, including very human capacities such as memory and voice. The works locate technology not as something external or abstract, but as something felt: in the body, in memory, in the rhythms of attention and perception. Working with compression, trained AI models, and emergence, the artists make visible the entanglements between human experience and the technological systems we inhabit.

Amanda E. Metzger proposes compression as a creative tool: to create something new, we need to forget. Moving across computer science, neuroscience, and nascent areas such as quantum and biocomputing, the work seeks modes of compression that retain enough to hold everything necessary, while leaving enough out for imagination to fill the gaps. Metzger is artist-in-residence at transmediale of the Digital Art Residency in cooperation with Pro Helvetia. 

Laura Benech investigates a technological system whose operation is based on the continuous re-differentiation of entangled systems, making visible what escapes formalisation within experiences of coexistence. Benech is artist-in-residence at transmediale of the coExistence Residency in collaboration with HEK (Basel, Switzerland) and Pleamar (Mar del Plata, Argentina), with the support of Pro Helvetia.

Zeno Gries speculates on the death of Norbert Wiener, originator of cybernetics and so-called grandfather of artificial intelligence. Wiener's monologue weaves together original audio from his lectures with a speculative text, spoken by an AI-generated approximation of his voice. Memories of childhood are interwoven with his thinking: how the nervous system functions like a computational apparatus, how identity is a pattern of potentially reproducible information, how machines can learn.

transmediale is a festival and space for critical reflection on art and technology. It brings together transdisciplinary communities and diverse audiences with an interest in digital cultures to develop new perspectives on our technomediated times. The festival takes place annually at the end of January and forms the core of the organisation's programming. Beyond the yearly event, transmediale is a transversal, dynamic platform with a vibrant community and a strong network that enables year-round activities, including publications, studio events, and a residency programme. In 2027, transmediale will celebrate its 40th edition.