Do we have power over our own decisions? Or are invisible algorithms secretly governing our actions? These questions are contemplated by psychologists, strategists and especially the artists behind CodeX, an immersive techno-art project across three venues in Venice.
Curated by Aorist, an agency for artists at the intersection of art and technology, CodeX gives a visual rhythm to the motivations behind our behaviours and cultural values. The artworks on show make sense of thought processes we might consider abstract, opaque or non-influential – and give a glossy veneer to the science.
Jonas Lund, MVP, Generation 1, From the series MVP (Most Valuable Painting), 2022. Courtesy the Artist and Aorist
Jonas Lund, MVP, Generation 1, From the series MVP (Most Valuable Painting), 2022. Courtesy the Artist and Aorist.
Studio Drift, Social Sacrifice, 2022. Installation view, courtesy the artist and Aorist. Image: Ossip
Rafaël Rozendaal’s installation Observation transforms the Navy Officer’s Club into a digital ‘waterfall’ with hypnotic colour and pattern. The ‘post-internet’ artist has set up beams within an envelope of mirrors and screens to create dancing patterns in tension with one another. The colour-patterns help and hinder one another within the space. Each appears to have its own agenda.
At the environmental art incubator TBA21-Academy’s Ocean Space, the research collective Studio Drift stages the aerial drone performance Social Sacrifice which explores flocking and swarming tendencies in animals and humans. Using choreographed flying lights to interpret a school of fish encountering a predator, the work highlights the push and pull between collective action and individual freedom, and which is better for facing an external threat.
Aorist stages Jonas Lund’s work on the website. The artist’s MVP (Most Valuable Painting) invites participants to evaluate their favourite paintings out of 512 online. The pieces will evolve based on their reception. The most desired will go on sale as NFTs, then the remaining paintings will emulate the most popular until they, too, are sold.
Other works will be available as NFTs, and Drift will donate a portion of sales of Social Sacrifice, created in collaboration with digital art pioneer Don Diablo, to TBA21–Academy.
