Elegy for Life, Anthem for Artifice

Presented for the 5th International Art and Science Symposium and Exhibition, 2019, the work Elegy for Life, Anthem for Artifice is viewed from a secret vantage point, where audiences quietly witness a pair of uncanny, ambiguous, life-forms, evolving and performing their private lives, forever entwining and parting ways, safely incubated within a pitch-black void. Seemingly alive and aware, this pair of flowing, rippling intelligences confound, delight, chill and inspire. And at the same time their powerful sounds echo and reverberate around the space, evolving wave upon wave: building the elegy soundtrack for our ‘old life’, re-imagined anew - in a powerful ‘anthem for artifice’.

Elegy for Life: Anthem for Artifice examines how artificial life-forms may, in the future, counteract the 'extinction of human experience' we sense today, as millennia-old species slip away into extinction. How can we now begin to re-imagine our futures, whilst acknowledging that profound loss? How might arts and sciences, in cooperation, help us to evolve and morph through dark ecologies towards unfamiliar new lights? How might the entwining of art and science help us re-imagine our ‘next life’?

The artwork Elegy for Life: Anthem for Artifice emerged out of a ten year long engagement with marine and terrestrial scientists, artificial life scientists, writers and artists – in a powerful expression of the power of collaboration - when art meets science in the age of AI. The work speaks to how we might better imagine sustaining modes of development that are based in consultation, contribution and mutual benefit for all species, both organic and synthetic.

SHOWING:
1: 5th International Art and Science Symposium and Exhibition, (AS-Helix: The Integration of Art and Science in the Age of Artificial Intelligence), National Museum of China, Nov 1-30, 2019. Curated by Lu Xiabo.

TEAM: Keith Armstrong: artistic direction and construction, Luke Lickfold: generative sound composition/coding.

PARTNERSHIPS:  QUT Creative Lab and Visual Arts. Special thanks to Julie Dean.

MORE: Elegy for Life, Anthem for Artifice builds upon the originating work Eremocene (Age of Loneliness) - first shown to broad acclaim at teh 2017 Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria.