Human Factors -exhibition is open at Watermans Art Centre in London. The exhibition is a group show of four contemporary artists Anna Estarriola, Hanna Haaslahti, Tyler Henry and Yassine Khaled. They’re focusing on the extremely timely topic: human interactions at the age of technology. They explore the ways our relationships, identities and culture are changing or affected by technology.
Anna Estarriola is an artist, born in Catalonia, living and working in Helsinki. Her expertise lies in dance, sculpture, performance and media arts. At the Human Factors -exhibition she displays two of her pieces. The Reincarnation Falieur is a hairy sculpture reminding a dog. However, the creature has human face, which loops four minute video. The Landscape shows the viewer tiny humans interacting with each other in post-apocalyptic landscape, where they have nothing left but each other.
Hanna Haaslahti is a media artist working and living in Helsinki. The piece displayed in the Human Factors -exhibition is made in collaboration with artist and software developer Tyler Henry. Henry has done research on machine learning and specialises in immersive exhibitions and 3D modeling. Their piece Captured, is a participatory installation in which the viewer steps into the virtual world. The technology captures the viewers face so they become both a spectator and an actor in a story situated in the virtual world.
Yassine Khaled is a Moroccan visual artist based in Helsinki. His sculptures, installations, performances, paintings, and videos focus on the disparity between the power and wealth of some, and the powerlessness and poverty of others in our globalised world. To London, Khaled brings Monitor Man in which the artist wears a helmet and makes a virtual connection with a person outside the Western world. The piece shows how people can connect with each other, thanks to technology, despite of the limitations set by distance and national borders. In The Age of DATA he explores connections between the present and the past, technology, communication and classical art. He’s picturing the development of art in the age of technology, and wondering, if technology is replacing our memory.
The Finnish Institute in London has participated in the exhibition vie MOBIUS -programme. MOBIUS is a three-year pilot programme for professionals of visual arts, museums and archives based in Finland, United Kingdom, New York, and the Republic of Ireland. MOBIUS supports peer-to-peer learning, meaningful networking and sharing knowledge.
Human Factors -exhibition, Watermans Art Centre, 40 High St, Brentford TW8 0DS. https://www.watermans.org.uk/events/human-factors/. 17.10.2018.–6.1.2019. Admission: free.
Text: Anna Suoninen, photo: Hanna Haaslahti.
