Amid the exponential acceleration of technological advancement, the technologists of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago create installations to prompt audiences to ask meaningful questions and confront the ever-changing environment. Through playful interactions, audiences are invited to rethink our relationship with media tools and how this material culture enhances or makes obsolete in relation to power, agency and resistance.

The exhibition title refers to one of the printed captions in Marshall McLuhan’s DEW Line Card Deck. Regarding the DEW Line, he exemplified in Understanding Media (1964): “I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.” Through a series of engaging investigations, the artists lead viewers to reexamine questions on the fluctuating equilibrium and flipping effects outlined by the tetrad of media effects.

Liang He raises existential questions between AI and humankind; Allison Ward’s sound installation invites audiences to challenge hyper-masculinity collectively through her amplified voice; Nickii Schamborski inquires into the role and authenticity of AI through a journey of queer belonging; erψn temp3st transforms themselves into a post-human cyborg to reclaim agency through repurposing quotidian objects; Tallulah Cartalucca and Yusuf Shamma reintroduce the concept of early technology, to confront viewers to reevaluate what technology truly is.

Read more on the Ars Electronica website