Extensive group exhibition digs into the dark side of technology

Kunsthal Charlottenborg presents this year's major group exhibition in close collaboration with KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin. Poetics of Encryption explores the dark side of tech, bringing together 38 international artists. Installed in Kunsthal Charlottenborg’s grand south wing, the exhibition spans analogue and digital media featuring historic and newly commissioned works.

Poetics of Encryption
Art and Artificial Intelligence
28 Sep 2024 – 12 Jan 2025

Though we rely on digital tools for many things, we rarely understand how they work. Moreover, due to the proprietary nature of much corporate tech, even the most curious among us cannot gain deeper insight. Today, we are forced to come to terms with our relative lack of power in the face of inscrutable systems. What symptoms of this personal and political drama register in the cultural field? What moods, symbols, or narrative frames capture the aesthetics and politics of exclusion, occlusion, secrecy, and speculation concerning technology’s inside?

The exhibition is curated by Nadim Samman, the author of the recent book titled Poetics of Encryption. Art and the Technocene. It surveys an imaginative landscape marked by 'Black Sites', 'Black Boxes', and 'Black Holes' — terms that indicate how technical systems capture users, how they work in stealth, and how they distort cultural space-time.

These three themes form the basis for the exhibition Poetics of Encryption that play out across more than 1000 m2 in Kunsthal Charlottenborg’s south wing. Indicative works include Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler’s overwhelming diagram Calculating Empires (2023) attempting to chart how power and technology have been intertwined since 1500. Trevor Paglen’s interactive video installation Faces of ImageNet (2022) demonstrates inherent biases in the emerging technology of facial recognition, drawing out concrete expressions of algorithmic racism, misogyny and more, latent in the AI’s training data, as it categorizes visitors. In Nora Al-Badri’s video The Post-Truth Museum (2021–23), the artist plays the role of ventriloquist, employing a custom AI to place unlikely words in the mouths of what she calls “three white-old-male museum directors.”

Michael Thouber, Director of Kunsthal Charlottenborg: “Last year, more than 1,000 international scholars, scientists and business leaders signed a joint declaration urging a stop to the development of artificial intelligence, as, in their opinion, the new technologies could be harmful to humanity. What are these distinctive personalities afraid of? Can development be stopped? And how do a number of the foremost artists of our time predict that the rapid development of artificial intelligence will affect contemporary art and society?"

"Those questions are investigated in the exhibition Poetics of Encryption, which both uses the fascinating technical possibilities and questions the ethical aspects of the use of new technology and artificial intelligence. With 38 Danish and international participating artists, it is one of the most ambitious exhibitions ever at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, which we are proud to bring to Denmark in close collaboration with KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin."

Participating artists: Nora Al-Badri, Morehshin Allahyari, Emmanuel Van der Auwera, Gillian Brett, Émilie Brout & Maxime Marion, Nanna Debois Buhl, Julian Charrière, Joshua Citarella, Clusterduck, Juan Covelli, Kate Crawford, Sterling Crispin, Simon Denny, enorê, Mathias Gramoso, Jürgen Mayer H., Roger Hiorns, Tilman Hornig, Vladan Joler, Daniel Keller, Andrea Khôra, Jonna Kina, Kristian Kragelund, Juliana Cerqueira Leite, Eva & Franco Mattes, Carsten Nicolai, Simone C Niquille, Trevor Paglen, Matthias Planitzer, Jon Rafman, Rachel Rossin, Sebastian Schmieg, Charles Stankievech, Most Dismal Swamp, Troika, Nico Vascellari

Poetics of Encryption is initiated by KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, with support by Volkswagen Group. The exhibition at Kunsthal Charlottenborg is supported by the Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansen’s Foundation, the Augustinus Foundation, the Beckett Foundation, the Danish Art Foundation, the New Carlsberg Foundation, the Obel Family Foundation, the William Demant Foundation.

Practical information
Poetics of Encryption
28 Sep 2024 – 12 Jan 2025
Press preview: 26 Sep, 11.00
Exhibition opening: 27 Sep, 17.00-21.00, free admission
Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Kongens Nytorv 1, 1050 Copenhagen K
After party: 27 Sep, 21.00-00.00, free admission 21.00-22.00
Culture Box, Kronprinsessegade 54, 1306 Copenhagen K
Further info here

Public program

27 Sep: Season opening
17.00-21.00 Exhibition opening of Poetics of Encryption and Any Noise Annoys An Oyster by Francis Upritchard
21.00-00.00 Afterparty: Poetics of Encryption x Culture Box
21.00-22.00 Eliott Litrowski
22.00-23.00 Rhyw & Moritz Stumm LIVE A/V (Fever AM / Flipping The Coin)
23.00-00.00 Alva Noto (DJ set)

2 Oct: Tour
17.30-18.30 Curator tour in the exhibition by Nadim Samman

11 Oct: Culture Night
18.00-00.00 Workshops, guided tours and treasure hunt for families

19 Oct: Autumn break
12.00-13.00 Family tour
13.00-14.00 Workshop in the exhibition

5 Nov: Tour
10.00-13.00 Art with your baby incl. guided tour in the exhibition

13 Nov: Charlottenborgs Kaffeklub
08.30-10.00 Art & Artificial Intelligence

27 Nov: Talk
17.00-18.30 Nora Al-Badri: Decolonizing Data: AI and Technoheritage

12 Jan: Finissage
11.00-17.00 Final day of the exhibition Poetics of Encryption
15.00-16.00 Curator tour in the exhibition by Nadim Samman

For more information about the exhibition, please contact:

Nadim Samman
Curator, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
nas@kw-berlin.de / (+49) 176 65652742

Press contact
Jeannie Møller Haltrup
Head of Communications, Kunsthal Charlottenborg
jmh@kunsthalcharlottenborg.dk/ (+45) 3374 4629

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