Vellum LA x EPOCH present:
LIFELIKE: Exploring Body Sovereignty In Web3
Curated by Katie Peyton Hofstadter
Left: Lauren Lee McCarthy, still from Good Morning (2023–Ongoing)
Right: White Male Artist aka Cassils, still from Special $HT (2021-2023)
Opening Reception:
Thursday, March16, 7-9 PM
On View at Vellum LA:
March 16 - April 2, 2023
Vellum LA
7673 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles CA 90046
Vellum LA is proud to present LIFELIKE, our latest group exhibition in collaboration with EPOCH, curated by Katie Peyton Hofstadter. LIFELIKE explores the work of ten artists logging biological, genetic, and behavioral information on a digital ledger, invoking a conversation about body sovereignty in Web3. This curated exhibition expands the ideas put forth in Hofstadter’s text, Bodies on the Blockchain (2022), with artworks available to collect directly through Vellum LA.
Technology is moving into our bodies, and our bodies are moving into technology. The stakes are high: Will we double our health spans or create a techno-dystopian Gilead? The artists in this exhibition are interested in what it will mean, and how it will feel, to have a body in a future where wetware (living tissue) serves as a foundation for technology, where medical implants monitor our hearts and minds, and where decisions are made by programs none of us fully understand.
Today, phones harvest information about our bodies and behaviors by default. How does it feel to seek digital connection when our every swipe, movement, and private message is under surveillance? Since the publication of Hofstadter’s original text, Eva Galperin from the Electronic Frontier Foundation has sounded alarms on the “unprecedented digital surveillance” on the bodies of abortion seekers in the U.S.; the E.U. has proposed mandatory government scanning of private messages, photos, and videos; and lab-grown human brain cells in a petri dish have learned to play Pong faster than an artificial intelligence. Body sovereignty has always been a privilege, and the history of predatory surveillance is deeply tied to systemic racism; while the aspirational mythology of Web3 promises individuals more control, it does not distribute that power equally, perpetuating technocapitalism’s colonial legacy.
Activists and leaders around the globe are demanding legislation to encode equitable human rights for all bodies, which must evolve and keep pace with the technology they use.
The artists in LIFELIKE bring a creative lens to the conversation: probing the ways information flows between our biological and virtual identities, expanding our vocabulary through imaginative scenarios, and using their own bodies to propel the conversation about the role – and rights – of all bodies in a hybrid world. By stress-testing so-called Web3’s effect on their own bodies, these ten artists also invite the possibility that the lab rats might now take back control.
VELLUM LA X EPOCH FEATURED ARTISTS
EDGAR FABIÁN FRÍAS · LANS KING · LAUREN LEE MCCARTHY · OONA x LORI BALDWIN · SAMMIE VEELER · WHITE MALE ARTIST AKA CASSILS · XIN LIU
EPOCH VIRTUAL EXHIBITION FEATURED ARTISTS
LANS KING · LAUREN LEE MCCARTHY · NICOLE WILSON · PUSSY RIOT · SPUTNIKO! · WHITE MALE ARTIST AKA CASSILS · XIN LIU
Xin Liu, Still from When we were all Flowers (2022)
About Katie Peyton Hofstadter
Katie Peyton Hofstadter is a Los Angeles / New York-based writer, artist and curator. Her work explores the role of artists and writers in co-creating systems for the present and for the imagined, near future. She has co-founded several international art campaigns, including #MakeUsVisible and the Climate Clock monument, as well as Future Art Models, a US-based project in prefigurative imagination commissioned by apexart. She is a contributor to Flash Art, The Believer, BOMB, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and Right Click Save. For the past ten years, she has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Parsons, The New School, and F.I.T., including writing, curating, and public programming for the arts.
About EPOCH
EPOCH is an artist-run virtual exhibition space that serves as a platform for showcasing and disseminating contemporary digital art practices. With a focus on community building and inclusivity, EPOCH represents a significant contribution to the field of contemporary art and its engagement with digital technologies. https://epoch.gallery/Lifelike/
