HARD-CORE / Silicon Dreams at Harbinger

SILICON DREAMS

by HARD-CORE

ASAHI 4.0 SHOWROOM 2018

February 17 – March 3

Silicon, a hard and brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster. widely distributed in dusts, sands, planetoids, and planets as various forms of silicon dioxide (silica) or silicates. This raw material is widely used within the tech industry for its highly conductive qualities as well as its ability to protect hardware from impact and natural elements. Both robust and soft – silicon embodies and unites: silicon valleys, silicon mountains, silicon disasters and silicon dreams.

The exhibition at Harbinger takes the form of a showroom for the 4th edition of HARD-CORE’s curatorial robot ASAHI. For this occasion, the group has produced a series of silicon skins to cover and protect the delicate sensory technology of ASAHI 4.0. By providing a different range of identities, ASAHI 4.0 personifies new relationships one can have with a robot.

The exhibition raises concerns with the predominant sexist tendencies within tech-aesthetics. Automatons are often sexualized and depicted as female servants in a male dominated tech-industry. Silicon Dreams explores the aestheticization of automation and pursues a potential de-gendering of robotics.

ASAHI 4.0 is HARD-CORE’s new cutting edge curatorial robot. It is the follow up of 7 years of the groups research into robotic curation. It is carefully designed to challenge the traditional and root grown criteria of exhibition making. ASAHI 4.0 consists of a free and open database where you can upload your profile and have the chance of being selected into one of its upcoming exhibitions.

To upload your profile visit: www.asahi4.com and submit your details. You can either apply as a host for an exhibition curated by ASAHI 4.0, or as a participating artist, although agents from outside the artworld are warmly welcome to join!

HARD-CORE is kindly supported by The European Pavilion.

Harbinger
Freyjugata 1
101 Reykjavík
Iceland