Madeline Schwartzman, Adjunct Professor of Architecture, is the curator of See Yourself E(x)ist at the Pratt Institute's Manhattan Gallery, an exhibition that looks at the future of humans and nature. Among the future-thinking work is a bioengineered hibernating bear in a future domestic pod we'll keep in our homes, robots displaying the life cycle of the Luna Moth (whose glorious moth life includes no mouth), a giant mobile unit of leaves (on the edge of extinction) cloned from around the world, and unusual sound sculptures, teeth-clad objects, a world premiere video by Alan Berliner and more. We are, after all, always plummeting toward our own end. Control is just a filter. Nature does not speak human. Turbulence, decay, entropy and gravity do not recognize human attempts at adaptation, or human existence at all. See Yourself E(x)ist focuses on human ingenuity in the midst of such disturbing awareness. The art acknowledges the elegance of futility, the strangeness of attempts at permanence, and the absurdity of technological advances.
Prof. Schwartzman is the author of See Yourself Sensing: Redefining Human Perception (Black Dog Publishing, London, 2011), and See Yourself X: Human Futures Expanded (just released). The featured artists include Nobumichi Asai, Alan Berliner, Michael Candy, Fantich & Young, Kathryn Fleming, Gijs Gieskes, Lee Griggs, Ann Hamilton, Dorry Hsu, John Jerard, Lanzavecchia + Wai, Loren-zo Oggiano, Jaime Pitarch, Andrew Quitmeyer, Madeline Schwartzman, and Allan Wexler.
See Yourself E(x)ist runs at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery from December 8, 2017 through February 17, 2018.
For more information, visit the Pratt Manhattan Gallery website here:
https://www.pratt.edu/the-institute/exhibitions/pratt-manhattan-gallery/