Automated Landscapes Time, Cycles, AutomataAutomated Landscapes Time, Cycles, Automata

Continuing Het Nieuwe Instituut's long-term engagement with the implications of artificial intelligence and automation for workspaces and productive landscapes in the Pearl River Delta, Time, Cycles, Automata argues that self-operating machines have been part of life in China since ancient times--from anthropomorphic automata to water-driven clocks and puppet theatres. A five-channel video installation by Juan Arturo García conceptualises a Shenzhen-based factory as a clock--driven by global capital rather than nature--reflecting on the coalescence of human, non-human, and more-than-human time cycles of contemporary automation.

Time, Cycles, Automata is part of Automated Landscapes, a long-term collaborative research initiative on the implications of automation for the built environment, launched in 2017 by Het Nieuwe Instituut. For the Pearl River Delta Research and this presentation, Ludo Groen, Marten Kuijpers and Marina Otero Verzier (Research department Het Nieuwe Instituut) closely worked together with architect and curator Merve Bedir of Aformal Academy.

The overarching theme of 2019 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (Shenzhen) is Urban Interactions. Chief curators for this year's UABB are Architect and Director of MIT Senseable City Lab Carlo Ratti, CAE academician Meng Jianmin and art critic Fabio Cavallucci.