Overview
Join us for a presentation by theorist Suhail Malik (Goldsmiths, University of London) building on Lawrence Lek’s critical formulation of ‘Sinofuturism’, and the ‘Farsight’ corporation. The latter is a recurring character in Lek’s work and a speculative AI art entity whose transformation plots speculative futures from our technological and cultural present. Malik will situate key themes in Lek’s art in relation to changing notions of modernity wrought by China’s recent development, corporate avantgardism, and the prospect of AI’s synthetic psyche. Malik’s research examines postglobal planetarity and legacies of modernity in the aftermath of neoliberalism. His presentation will be followed by an in-conversation with the artist moderated by writer and art critic Orit Gat.
– Lawrence Lek's solo exhibition 'Life Before Automation' will be available to view from 6pm
– Talk will commence at 7pm
BIOGRAPHIES:
Lawrence Lek is a filmmaker, musician, and artist who unifies diverse practices—architecture, gaming, video, music and fiction—into a continuously expanding cinematic universe. Over the last decade, Lek has incorporated vernacular media of his generation, such as video games and computer-generated animation, into site-specific installations and digital environments which he describes as ‘three-dimensional collages of found objects and situations.’ Often featuring interlocking narratives and the recurring figure of the wanderer, his work explores the myth of technological progress in an age of artificial intelligence and social change.
Suhail Malik is Director of the MFA Fine Art, Goldsmiths, London, where he holds a Readership in Critical Studies. He has written widely on contemporary art and philosophy, and is co-editor of Realism Materialism Art (Sternberg, 2015) and Genealogies of Speculation (Bloomsbury, 2016).
Orit Gat is a British writer and art critic living in London, whose work on contemporary art, books, digital culture and football has appeared in numerous magazines, including The White Review, frieze, e-flux journal and e-flux criticism, ArtReview, Jacobin and many others. She teaches on the MA in writing programme at the Royal College of Art.
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