now that the artifice is dissolved,

now that the artifice is dissolved, a group exhibition and publication launch of Silverfish 001: Cyborgities

November 14 – November 30, 2020

Featuring new works by Jessica Kasiama, Alex Lepianka, Miao Liu, and B Wijshijer

Curated by Dallas Fellini, Greta Hamilton, and Sameen Mahboubi 

Presented by Hearth 

Exhibition Documentation by Philip Ocampo

now that the artifice is dissolved, examines manifestations of the cyborg through material and conceptual frameworks. This exhibition corresponds with the launch of the first issue of Silverfish Magazine, and concludes a five-week series of workshops. Our workshop series aimed to challenge and expand the way that we make art together, write together, talk together, and work together, through prioritizing skill sharing, friendship, collaboration, and building interdisciplinary relationships. Nourished by these practices, we grounded our explorations through the concept of the cyborg. We sought to ask, what is the potential of the cyborg; as a body, a concept, a theory, as a way of being? We made no conclusions.

Instead, we offer only more questions: 

How do we construct the self amidst the machine learning Instagram algorithm, amidst consumer-as-identity capitalism, and the height of the Kardashian empire? How is the postmodern subject purged of interiority under these conditions, and inversely forced to project an identity through digital traces and subsequent dis-embodiment? What can we as arts practitioners still glean from the concept of the cyborg, which has been studied since the initial rise of technological utopic/dystopic discourse? How can cyborgitiesenable a more compassionate practice, grounded in collectivity and non-linear relationships? As we begin to relinquish our attachments to the humanist project, what will come after us? What is heaven in the machine?

Now that the artifice is dissolved, what is the next thing to worry about? 

Miao Liu’s weavings, Alex Lepianka’s photographs of found objects and excerpts from their text “Dispute Codicology,” B Wijshijer’s digital collages, and Jessica Kasiama’s video reading of her text “Tracing the Path,” each consider the cyborg through various entry points. They position the cyborg as identity, as enemy, as God, as a friend.