Extreme Presence

What forms does presence take when the world and its technologies exceed what can be explained, known, or felt? How to re-imagine human, non-human and synthetic life on this planet today?

Extreme Presence gathers artists, thinkers and practitioners to Amsterdam for a programme of talks, performances, interventions and workshops. Focusing on presence as a practice, a problem and a responsibility, the weekend asks questions currently shaping art and advanced technology. One concerns a "devotional turn" in contemporary culture: how theology, mysticism and contemplative traditions offer new avenues to navigate planetary and cultural instability. The gathering also investigates the multiple histories of technology itself, from Traditional Ecological Knowledge to interspecies communication, and what these histories open up for those working between art and computation.

Following the Art in the Metaverse and Digital Cosmos conferences (2023–2025), Extreme Presence continues and expands the research and development activities of the future Hartwig Museum.

Programme

Friday 23 Oct.

• 4 – 5 p.m. at Cinema The Pulse
  Screening: Liu Chuang, Wet Metal and Cotton Dance (2025), 45 minutes. Two analysts diagnose embodied AI suffering breakdown from interstellar mining, healing them through the 1933 Cotton Dance. Cold War cotton harvesters, boll weevils, and Aral Sea ecology fuse into a speculative creation myth where ritual meets technology. 

• 6 – 9 p.m. at Hartwig Proxy
  Welcome by Beatrix Ruf and introduction to Extreme Presence by Lucia Pietroiusti
  Book launch & lecture-performance: Mirror Tarot: A Machine for Constructing Stories (Silver Press) with Sarah Shin and Sammy Lee. Spanning game, ritual and performance, Mirror Tarot is a tool for play, divination and worldmaking.
  
  Devotional Technologies, with Bogna Konior*, Lawrence Lek and Lukáš Likavčan. A series of presentations and conversations on theology, mysticism and Artificial Intelligence: is there a devotional turn in art and technology?  

Saturday 24 Oct.

• 11 a.m. – 12.30 p.m. at Hartwig Proxy
  Welcome by Beatrix Ruf
  Presentations and conversation: Technologies of Being, with Prathima Muniyappa, Sumana Roy*, Jeremy Shaw and Aliya Say, moderated by Lucia Pietroiusti.  On contemplative practices and non-human consciousness in plant worlds and cosmic space.  

• 2 – 3.30 p.m. at Hartwig Proxy
  Presentations and conversation: Technologies of Interrelation, with Elizabeth LaPensée*, Fainos Mangena, Marilou Schultz and Lua Vollaard, moderated by Diana Campbell.
  On philosophies and ethics of interrelation, and what kinds of technologies can be built on different foundations.
   
• 4 – 6 p.m. at Cinema The Pulse
  Screening: Jeremy Shaw, Quantification Trilogy (Quickeners, 2014; Liminals, 2017; I Can See Forever, 2018), total running time 1 hr 52 minutes. Introduced by the artist.  

  Three parafictional short films set at in the future. Set 500 years from now, Quickeners presents the activities and testimonies of a small group of “Quantum Humans,” exhibiting symptoms of “Human Atavism Syndrome”, which awakens desire in the affected to seek out the abandoned spiritual meaning of their human predecessors. Liminals is presented as a recovered episode of a documentary series on marginal societies who respond to a widespread loss of ability for faith that threatens the extinction of the human species. I Can See Forever is conceived as a television documentary series about “The Singularity Project,” a failed government experiment that aimed to create a harmonious synthesis of human and machine. 

• 7 – 8 p.m. at Cinema The Pulse
  Lecture-performance: Mark Leckey, Batter My ❤️ 3-Personed G0D.
  Leckey’s performance-lecture begins with a Medieval prophesy and ends with the high dimensional realm we are about to enter. It threads together apocalyptic visions, the 20th century counterculture, Y2K and the singularity.

Sunday 25 Oct.

• 11 a.m. – 12.30 p.m. at Hartwig Proxy
  Welcome by Beatrix Ruf. Presentations and conversation: Prophetic Technologies, with Daniel Blanga Gubbay, Mark Leckey and Christopher Kulendran Thomas, moderated by Ivan Cheng. On art, medieval entities and autonomous technologies.

• 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. and 3 – 6 p.m. at Parnassus 212
  Weaving workshop with Marilou Schultz.
  For participants 13 years and older. Booking required. This hands-on weaving workshop brings together centuries-old weaving techniques with contemporary technology and formal experimentation.
   
• 2 – 3.30 p.m. at Hartwig Proxy
  Presentations and conversation: Technologies of Cultivation, with Haley Albert, Xin Liu, William Morgan and Aishwarya Khanduja, moderated by Leonardo Dellanoce and Arthur Steiner. On what it takes to grow and sustain flourishing ecosystems for artistic R&D.
   
• 4 – 5 p.m. at Cinema The Pulse
  Screening: Tabita Rezaire, Mamelles Ancestrales (2019), 61 minutes, with an artist introduction*
  Megaliths are ancient stone monuments, often in the form of a circle, and are found all over the world. In The Gambia and Senegal, they are seen as shrines, reminding the locals of the rich cultures that existed in the region before it was colonised. Mamelles Ancestrales takes us to the core of the debate about the search for knowledge about these structures. Should scientific explanations get priority over spiritual or cultural interpretations? 
   
• 6 – 9 p.m. at Hartwig Proxy
  An Evening of Extreme Presence, with Taylor Le Melle, Holly Pester and Ariana Reines. Live readings of poetry and fiction on technology, health, sensuality and devotion  

Wednesday 14 – Sunday 25 Oct.

During public opening hours at Hartwig Proxy (free)
Extreme Presence short films programme: a selection of films and videos by artists.

* Denotes online participation