From a position of concern with ecological breakdown, Art Against the Machine inquires into the role of art and theory in relation to the hybridist idea that a distinction between nature and culture, between humans and technologies, and between nature and technologies should not be made. It relates the demise of critique of technology to the rise of space perspectives on Earth, the internet and the network economy. This history unfolds a genealogy of the Anthropocene discourse and the proposed aesthetics of an ecology without nature as a naturalisation of technologisation which does not contest, but instead intensifies, the domination of nature inherent in the nature-culture dualism.
How sublime is the expansion of technology, exploding in a split second when seen from the space perspective of planetary time! The exclamation mark could also be a question, as the impact of accelerating automation weighs down as a burden on the biosphere, increasing scarcity for most earthy beings, while surveillance and dependency on technologies deepens. As we seem stuck in this mode of progress, is there a way to change this situation?
Author: Monique Peperkamp
Design: Studio Tofe Al-Obaidi, Arnhem
