Why does new technology give rise to so much hope and fear? The relationship between humans and technology is one of the great dramas of the modern age, often featuring the machine as either a saviour overcoming human limitations or a monster threatening our existence. Artists today are developing new and more complex visions showing humans, technology, animals and plants operating in symbiotic constellations. Exploring this perspective, the Soft Robots exhibition features Danish and international artists presenting their visions for a new synthetic biology and its potential connections to spirituality.

The concept of the exhibition is inspired by The Nightingale (1843), the classic Hans Christian Andersen fairytale contrasting a mechanical (robotic) bird with the natural, enlivening song of a real nightingale. Pan-Asian philosophies of life dissolve this dualism, as the notion of objects having a soul opens the door to a closer connection between technology and biology. The works and practices presented in the exhibition reflect and cut across these positions. Examining the idea of life-like technology as a human replica, Soft Robots paints a poetic picture of the implications of technology in our life, nature and being in the world.

The exhibition features new works by international artists Joan Heemskerk and Alice Bucknell, both selected from the Collide residency, the collaboration framework between Arts at CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary (2023-2025).

Photo: WangShui, Certainty of the Flesh, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Haus der Kunst, Berlin, 2023