EPOCH: A Cosmic Movie Camera

Exhibition on view:
January 24th – May 16th 2024

Curated By:
Nora N. Khan and Andrea Bellini

Location:
At the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève
And Online

*EPOCH: A Cosmic Movie Camera is on view at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève and online through May 16th*

Through a pinhole into the unknown – A Cosmic Movie Camera is a group show curated by Nora N. Khan and Andrea Bellini at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève as part of Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement 2024, presenting a collection that explores the moving image in the algorithmic age.

A diverse group of 16 artists each showcase works that present a glimpse into the unseen: Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Alfatih, American Artist, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Sheila Chukwulozie, Formafantasma, Aziz Hazara, Interspecifics, Lawrence Lek, Shuang Li, Diego Marcon, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Sahej Rahal, Jenna Sutela, and Emmanuel Van der Auwera.

“Still, there was the screen in the space you could return to, where you could start again as player one, choose your direction, make a new decision, move towards a new object, re-orient, and then click to arrive, perhaps with another person, at the scene of another screen.

Collected here are past models for intelligence made by an intelligent species gone off its rocker. Annals of generations of intelligent machines, competing and replacing one another. From simulation to reality, to reality as an outcome of simulation, and then back again, the human mind had evolved in relation to a host of models.”

— Nora N. Khan, curator

The visual cues to the unknown include holographic figures and simulations of artificial intelligence, television shows and games, and future speculations as well as ancient projections.

The exhibition takes its name from astrophysicists’ recent discovery of the photon ring around a black hole called the “infinite light trap” – referencing that this ring may be the key visible way mankind will learn more about the inside of black holes, A Cosmic Movie Camera showcases the artists’ interpretation of the key to our future history.

“Left alone, the museum could be a game where competing dreams for culture, technology, and the future could be observed at a remove, just in the world that would come to be. The museum could be an externalized mnemonic architecture, a memory palace of shared cultural artifacts. Visiting it alone, you imagined everyone who had stepped through before. The works feel new each time because of the accelerating decay, their intensity attuned over time through absence.”

— Nora N. Khan, curator

Alongside the physical exhibition at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, EPOCH immerses online visitors in the 3D virtual world that translates the artists’ works into a 3D context and postulates the past, present, and future of Geneva.

The exhibition is curated by Nora N. Khan with the director of the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Andrea Bellini. The curators selected the artists to be commissioned to produce original works presented in premiere in Geneva for the occasion.

The event celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève and is part of the 18th edition of the The Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement. The institution hopes that “these installations, inspired by the ethos of early data exchange, will serve as interactive hubs for the public to retrieve and pore through archival information, references, texts, poetry, posters, and catalogs throughout the duration of the show.”

For those who aren’t in Geneva, A Cosmic Movie Camera is on view at EPOCH through May 16th, 2024 — see the virtual exhibition and let us know your thoughts!