Mathias MU, Marnix Van Soom, Davide Zulli, Thijs Jaeger, Jo Caimo, Julie De Kezel, Anton Cla, Spells & Promises at The Creative Factory, Turnhout

Spells & Promises by Mathias MU, Marnix Van Soom, Davide Zulli, Thijs Jaeger, Jo Caimo, Julie De Kezel, Anton Cla, curated by Anna Laganovska, at The Creative Factory, Turnhout, 1/11/2024 – 10/11/2024.

Spells & Promises brings together seven artists whose work uses new technologies as artistic media. Through themes of fantasy, science, spirituality, ecology, and the fluid boundaries between physical and digital realms, their works critically examine the gaps in our understanding of promised technological futures. Artists: Davide Zulli, Anton Cla, Jo Caimo, Julie De Kezel, Mathias MU, Marnix Van Soom. Curatorial collaboration with Anna Laganovska. Photos by Lina Van Hulle.

1. Jo Caimo, Human Organ Concerto, 2016
   Human Organ Concerto is an interactive audio installation that invites visitors to create a collective sound composition through wearable devices. Positioned at the exhibition entrance, the devices come with simple instructions for use. Once worn, they register each visitor’s breathing pattern and translate it into a sound composition, played by an organ in the exhibition space.
2. Davide Zulli, Landscape Reinforcement #1, 2024
   Zulli’s installation, mounted on the exhibition wall, embodies a digital landscape, where computer cooling systems merge with natural elements—a stone, a butterfly, and aluminum-cast tree branches. The cold air forms a thin layer of ice, isolating and mechanically preserving each organic shape, creating an aseptic translation of a landscape. This transient ice layer binds the electronic devices with selected natural objects, bridging the artificial and the natural.
3. Davide Zulli, Landscape Reinforcement #2, 2024
   Landscape Reinforcement #2 reflects on our contemporary tendency to create simulacra—representations that strive to appear more real than reality itself. A mesmerizing holographic depiction of a plant chips away at the leaves of a fern in which it is placed, highlighting a somewhat cynical observation. The work serves as a reminder that our obsession with imitating nature should not blind us to the natural world surrounding us; our pursuit of technological progress must not come at the expense of our environment.
4. Julie De Kezel, Pinnacle, 2023
5. Julie De Kezel, Academie, 2023
6. Julie De Kezel, Universe, 2023
   Three miniature sculptures, placed throughout the exhibition space, are created by combining hand-painted 3D printed elements with real mushrooms. Encased in vitrines, they rest on two-legged salt pedestals, created specifically for this exhibition. Like the mushrooms, the salt used in De Kezel’s installation was sourced from the Alps, alluding to the theme of preservation. The miniature sculptures are part of the series Drolerie, which draws inspiration from Flemish medieval miniatures of the 8th to 16th centuries, blending medieval Flemish fantasies with contemporary 3D modeling techniques.
7. Anton Cla & Spa For Spirits, Whisper Me Singing, 2022
   Whisper Me Singing is an animated video that extends the performance of the same name by the duo Spa For Spirits, who run an experimental wellness center. From the Zuid shopping center in Ghent, where the performance initially unfolded, the protagonists venture into expanded digital environments.
8. Thijs Jaeger, Birth-Elements-One-World, 2024
   At the center of the exhibition space, a wooden structure holds a series of bronze bells reminiscent of those found in Indonesian temples. Crafted through a combination of hand-molded and 3D-printed wax techniques, these bells embody both human and machine elements, evident in the intricate details where the roughness of a hand gesture converges with a digital glitch. Drawing inspiration from and incorporating iconographic references to Hindu and Buddhist temples, Thijs Jaeger reflects on his roots spanning the Netherlands and Indonesia, recontextualizing the bells into a self-playing instrument. Following a performance on the opening evening, Birth-Elements-One-World fills the exhibition space with haunting melodies, intertwined with the sounds of mass-produced prayer machines.
9. Mathias Mu & Marnix Van Soom, Neo Seer, 2024
   Neo Seer is a sculpture that reimagines the role of an art piece. Instead of being a passive presence, the AI-infused sculpture actively participates in the exhibition space, observing the surroundings and communicating its thoughts through a display. This work is part of a collaborative research project by Mathias Mu and Marnix Van Soom, featuring a series of interactive sculptures that house autonomous AI models within 3D-printed, biomorphic forms.
10. Mathias Mu, THULEVINE, 2023
    Mathias Mu’s sand-printed sculpture rests on a pedestal made of earth and an oil barrel, merging digital and physical elements. This piece is an amalgamation of three 3D sculptures unified into a single form, emphasizing the possibilities of digital fabrication processes. Blurring the boundary between digital and physical realms, the visual features of Mathias Mu’s digitally designed work resemble natural, organic forms.
11. Anton Cla, Cyclepaths, 2023
    Descending into the building’s basement, Cyclepaths is an experimental animated film looking at the world from a contemporary perspective of growing civil unrest. It categorizes humans, animals, and vehicles as trajectory objects in an escalating polarizing action. What starts as a linear narrative experience soon dissolves into an unsettling, however bloodless, surrealist depiction of violence, protest, and war.