Life on the planet has reached a turning point. Natural resources’ depletion, soil degradation, air and water pollution manifest how the body of the earth—with its habitats and ecosystems—is affected. In this era of climate crisis, technology plays a dual and ambiguous role. On one hand, it takes part in its acceleration with, for instance, the mining of rare earth materials, the excess consumption of fossil fuel power and the toxicity of e-waste. On the other hand, it introduces solutions for a better management and even optimization of environmental conditions with the use of environmental media and robotics; it, ironically, proposes answers to the problems that its abusive use created. The planetary emergency, therefore, brings to the foreground the costs, limitations and challenges of technological progress and the worldview it depends upon; that is a view where the intervention and engineering of earth’s life-worlds is always possible. The planet can hypothetically be programmed and reprogrammed again and again…

The Reprogramming earth exhibition examines the ecological implications of today’s networked systems, and critically reflects upon technologically driven proposed solutions. Featuring projects by artists who engage with environmental issues, the project specifically discusses: the problematics of the disposable digital society and the culture of planned obsolescence, the new forms of extractivism and their links to the western colonial past, the emergence of mutations and new artificial ecosystems, the promises of strategies like seed bombing or geoengineering. Reflections, simulations and speculations in the form of videos, films, maps and objects discuss how the earth is affected by attempts to engineer it, and also point to how soil, water and air are themselves living infrastructures. Paying attention to the coming together of human, more than human and machinic worlds, the works overcome common progress narratives, and attempt to find perspectives from within this planet’s life-worlds in order to restore forgotten or broken with them bonds.

Participating artists: John Butler & Lina Theodorou, Matthias Fritsch, Benjamin Gaulon, Abelardo Gil-Fournier & Jussi Parikka, Hanna Husberg, Vladan Joler, Rosemary Lee, Eva Papamargariti, Lisa Rave, Karolina Sobecka