Adam Peacock, Tominga Hope O’Donnell and Tine Semb in conversation
+ Launch of the Perfection / Speculation Explorer
A collaboration between PRAKSIS and RAM Galleri
at Kongens gate 15, 0153 Oslo
Free. Held in English
How does social media impact our perception of our embodied selves? How will emerging technologies—artificial intelligence, genetics—shape the human bodies of the future? What do the changes that loom mean for “non-normative” bodies?
This publication launch and conversation will take place in Adam Peacock’s exhibition, The Validation Junky. Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at MUNCH Dr Tominga O’Donnell, Tine Semb, co-editor of Billedkunst art journal and founder of queer discursive platform and club concept, Karmaklubb* and Adam Peacock will join forces to unravel and examine the tangled relationships between social media, emerging technologies and the human body. Their conversation will be followed by an open Q&A: audience questions and comments are warmly invited.
About the Perfection / Speculation Explorer
The Explorer is an A1 foldout publication documenting four thought-provoking interviews between Adam Peacock and leading protagonists in the fields of new technology, identity, the body and the perception of self: author of The Transhuman Manifesto Natasha Vita-More, Professor in the History and Theory of Architecture at MIT Mark Jarzombek; Presidential Professor at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, Lev Manovich; and science-fiction artist, filmmaker, inventor and body architect Lucy McRae. The interview questions were developed by Peacock in collaboration with his fellow Perfection / Speculation residents: Marte Aas, Jonathan Armour, Louis Alderson-Bythell, Trinley Dorje, Erika Stöckel, and Bobby Yu Shuk Pui.
About the speakers
Adam Peacock is a British post-disciplinary artist, architect, and academic. His work has appeared in museums, galleries, scientific forums and educational institutions worldwide. Recent exhibition hosts include the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (2023), Tecnológico De Monterrey, Mexico (2022-23), and Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria (2021).
As a Visiting Professor at the School Of International Art, Beijing, Peacock leads the Future of Fashion, Identity and the Metaverse Masterclass (2020- present); other universities at which he has taught include London College of Fashion, the Royal College of Art and Melbourne School of Design. He has consulted and designed for architects, fashion and vehicle designers, urban planners, and educational institutions, including Audi, FIAT, Heatherwick Studio, NEOM Saudi Arabia, Science Gallery Network, and Stella McCartney.
Dr Tominga O’Donnell is Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at MUNCH. O’Donnell is the curator of the inaugural MUNCH Triennale – The Machine Is Us together with Stefano Collicelli Cagol. The Machine Is Us presented works by artists who examine the social impacts of new technologies and sketch imaginative future scenarios for a society in the midst of digital transformation. She/they has also curated solo exhibitions with Camille Henrot, Sandra Mujinga, Piya Wanthiang and Admir Batlak and a series of performance commissions in collaboration with Ingrid Moe, including new works by Manuel Pelmuş, Bendik Giske, Camille Norment, and Brendan Fernandes.
Tine Semb is founder and organizer of Karmaklubb* — a nomadic queer-oriented club concept, discursive platform, publisher and research hub in Oslo, Norway. Semb is also co-editor of Billedkunst art journal, a freelance writer, a curator, a text nerd, an artist, a craft brewer and a lover of cheese and wine.
About the Exhibition
The Validation Junky, a collaboration between PRAKSIS and RAM Galleri, brings together ambitious new artworks and research by British post-disciplinary artist/designer Adam Peacock. At the front of RAM gallery, drawings and video works by Peacock speculatively map possible futures of a technologically enabled human evolution, while the rear gallery showcases a major body of research generated by Peacock in Oslo during his September 2021 PRAKSIS residency Perfection / Speculation. Peacock’s research features thought-provoking video interviews between the artist and four leading protagonists in the fields of new technology, identity, the body and the perception of self: author of The Transhuman Manifesto Natasha Vita-More, Professor in the History and Theory of Architecture at MIT Mark Jarzombek; Presidential Professor at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, Lev Manovich; and science-fiction artist, filmmaker, inventor and body architect Lucy McRae.
Residency partners The Vigeland Museum and queer live events coordinators Karmaklubb* helped shape this research. Peacock’s interviews are staged within the Museum’s dramatic display of works by Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland (1869-1943), reminding that lived experience for both normative and non-normative bodies is modelled by body cultures of the past as well as present and future technologies such as social media, AI and CRISPR/Cas9.
