Meta.Morf 2024 – [up]Loaded Bodies / Kjøpmannsgata Ung Kunst / Conference April 19 – 20 /
Curator: Zane Cerpina
Meta.Morf 2024 – [up]Loaded Bodies
The Meta.Morf 2024 – [up]Loaded Bodies Conference explores the physical and technological body caught between virtual ecstasy and digital obesity.
How to understand our place in a world where technologies blur the lines between the digital and the physical? Where everyone is in an endless state of loading—the living and dead, the human and non-human, the born and synthetic? This flux of physical-to-digital-and-back is reshaping every aspect of our existence—how we love, interact, identify, cognize, and even contemplate The End.
[up]Loaded Bodies examines the liminal space where the body is put at the ridge between the tangible and intangible. The conference invites you to engage with critical questions about our coexistence and co-evolution with digital technologies. What is the status quo of [up]Loaded Bodies?
When algorithms enter your Tinder pool, who is really making the choices? And would you fall in love with an AI?
As we wander through the digital landscapes in our new avatar bodies, do we secretly desire for our physical selves to vanish?
Existing among profiles of people long gone and species long extinct, what implications do digital technologies have on death? Will your digital tombstone manifest your legacy? And how does the digital de-extinction of species and personalities redefine life and continuity?
What happens to our body image when AI enters the picture? From political propaganda to revenge porn and deepfakes, are we losing control over our own bodies?
What about the extreme, excessive, radical, and extravagant when the body is loaded with technologies? How is art and technology pushing our bodies to the edge of norms?
And what about pure technological bodies? Do they have their own agenda and purpose? Will they keep serving humans or secure their own needs?
What if technology is having more fun interacting with plants and other non-human species?
Can virtual technologies deepen our connection to the physical world around us? Or are they making us leave our own bodies behind?
Why are we stuck in the liminal space between the physical and digital? Blame it on gravity? And how do we cope with the withdrawal symptoms upon returning to the physical realm? Are you still a human?
[up]Loaded Bodies explores the current state of digitally entangled bodies. The conference presents an exciting lineup of speakers, including artists, researchers, writers, curators, and experts of all things [up]Loaded.
The program also introduces an innovation initiative and features a discussion panel by Kulturdirektoratet (Arts and Culture Norway). The panel will focus on the uneasy balance between artistic freedom and calls for regulation in relation to emerging technologies such as AI. Complementing the discourse, the launch of the latest issue of Neural Magazine will offer further exploration of the biennale theme.
Together we will expose our digitally entangled bodies.
Get ready to embrace your digital identity.
Get [up]Loaded.
– Zane Cerpina, 2024
Zane Cerpina [LV/NO] is a multicultural and interdisciplinary female author, curator, artist, and designer. Cerpina lives in Oslo and currently works as project manager/curator at TEKS (Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre) and editor and manager at EE: Experimental Emerging Art Journal, Norway. From 2015 – 2019 she worked as creative manager and editor at PNEK (Production Network for Electronic Art, Norway).
Cerpina is the author of The Anthropocene Cookbook: Recipes and Opportunities for Future Catastrophes, co-written with Stahl Stenslie and forthcoming at MIT Press, October 2022. Her extensive body of works also include curating and producing FAEN (Female Artistic Experiments Norway) project series; The Dangerous Futures Conference 2018; Oslo Flaneur Festival 2016, and The Anthropocene Kitchen event series (2016 -). Cerpina has initiated and been part of several important archival and research projects such as The Norwegian Media Art Library and is one of the editors for the Book of Electronic Arts Norway.