Engaging with art can be an emotional experience - performance, sculpture, painting or music can all touch us beyond words – yet technology is often considered mechanical, cold or inhuman. So how can artists show new perspectives on life, emotion and relationships by using digital technologies to connect human beings and digital?

This exhibition of nine international artists allows you to experience a range of emotional and physical reactions to artwork that explore the links between humans, machines and technology - both now and in the future.

Thom Kubli brings his piece Black Hole Horizon, whilst U_Joo+LimheeYoung use human hair in their surreal work Machine with hair caught in it that gives a feeling of unease. Felix Luque Sanchez, Max Dovey and Libby Heaney use humorous aspects of modern communication in their works which involve emails, Instagram and Tinder respectively, with Dovey’s work using an algorithm to decide if visitors look ‘hipster’ enough to enter his work, A Hipster Bar. The artworks look at ideas about identity, relationships, independence and the absurd side of technology.

Housewives Making Drugs by Mary Maggic and the three individual works Heart, Brain and Lungs by Pascal Haudressy are screen-based pieces that encourage you to think about your own bodies and others, whilst leading digital artists Thomson and Craighead awaken those bodies and senses with their perfume Apocalypse.

Finally, Nye Thompson uses CCTV footage to create a curious environment that asks questions about technology and privacy, contributing a sense of anxiety to an exhibition of many emotions.

humansbeingdigital artists:

U_Joo and Limhee Young; Max Dovey; Thom Kubli; Nye Thompson; Thomson and Craighead; Mary Maggic; Mango Chijo Tree and The Jayder; Pascal Haudressy; Libby Heaney and Felix Luque Sanchez.

• Craighead, Alison and Thomson, Jon. 2016. Apocalypse/In words alas drown I (2016 - 2030). [Art Object] (Forthcoming)

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/27981