How do we conceive ourselves as a species? Does our self-awareness come from within or, instead, from the physicality of the world around us? The projects selected for this gallery look at the basic human senses - smell, touch, taste, sight and hearing - in order to explore how we consider ourselves as people in the world. Some explore the human craving for touch and physical contact, while some give insight into how we define our bodily awareness through repetitive motions. Others still, consider how our own consciousness might be heightened by adopting the more advanced senses of other species.
In our fraught contemporary society, ruled by technology and plagued with fears of artificial intelligence, it is easy to take for granted our environment and how it shapes us. The projects here provide a sense of grounding and paint a nuanced landscape of human connection while embracing an expansive view of the environment - one that can be both physical and digital, natural or artificial. Most importantly, taken as a whole, they seem to argue that our senses are the best tool to practice empathy - with each other, with the planet, and with other species.
Paola Antonelli
