Artist, author, and lecturer John Mack announces a month-long immersive exhibition A Species Between Worlds: Our Nature, Our Screens. Over the month of September, the exhibition examines the intersection of humanity and technology via a gamified meditation experience aimed at restoring balance between ourselves and our smart devices.
A Species Between Worlds also serves as a forum featuring a rich program of talks and events, free to the public, that will convene thought leaders from around the world on the increasingly slippery boundary between our humanity and our technology. A Species Between Worlds combines thought-provoking artwork with an inspiring program that brings together a unique group of high profile speakers and leaders from the fields of art, academia, technology, and business to explore the nexus of new technology and human behavior through a multidisciplinary lens.
Program highlights include Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, a conversation with Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, a panel hosted by Stanford University Professors Rob Reich, Jeremey Weinstein and Mehran Sahami to discuss their book, System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot, a panel on the State of Social Media featuring NYU’s Jonathan Haidt, a keynote from Monica Lewinsky who will touch on the effects of cyberbullying and much more. Programming partnerships include the David Lynch Foundation, Life Calling Initiative, Fairplay, The Tibet House, New York Center for Living, The Explorer’s Club, and more.
Humans are a species between worlds. We’re on a mass-migration from the natural world to the digital world, abdicating our natural spaces while expanding digital ones. Smartphones, designed to be tools, have become our reality — and with every swipe, tap and pinch, our humanity is being exported, little by little. I’m very consciously not anti-technology, but rather I aim to foster mindfulness so that our devices serve as our tools and not the other way around. The exhibition is an invitation to contemplate our relationship to our devices and the surrounding world while inspiring the introspection needed to prevent the loss of our humanity.
states John Mack.
A Species Between Worlds was sparked by the Pokémon Go craze and a subsequent stampede in Taipei in 2016. During that time, Mack was drawn to how the phenomenon was blurring the boundaries between virtuality and reality. Developed over the past six years this exhibition presents a technology-forward narrative arc that centers the individual and aims to foster balance and awareness between our technology and ourselves. A Species Between Worlds will showcase more than 65 artworks across 17,000 square feet that feature imagery of more than 50 U.S. National Parks and the Seven Wonders of the Natural World, all manipulated and combined with artificial landscapes from the Pokémon Go app. The exhibition will also offer a customized app that guides visitors throughout a gamified psychological exploration framed by the artifice of the Pokémon Go interface, which gradually fades as reality is restored.
A SPECIES BETWEEN WORLDS: OUR NATURE, OUR SCREENS September 1st – 30th, 2022 537 West 27th Street New York, NY 10001 aspeciesbetweenworlds.com
About
John Mack is an artist, photographer, author, lecturer and the founder of the nonprofit initiative Life Calling, whose mission is to foster awareness and balance for society in the Digital Age. Mack is a 2022 honoree of The Explorer’s Club 50: Fifty people changing the world who the world needs to know about. Additionally, Mack serves as a board member of Fairplay, an organization that strives to create a world where kids can be kids, free from the false promises of marketers and the manipulations of Big Tech. He has served as an adjunct lecturer for the Graduate program of Design at the University of Lisbon. He currently lives between London and Seville. life-calling.org
MESH Architectures was founded in New York City by Eric Liftin in 1997 as a hybrid architectural practice spanning the physical and virtual. MESH has designed a wide range of projects, large and small, residential and commercial. MESH embraces sustainable building, promoting passive-house construction. Innovation is integral to MESH’s design approach, and over the years MESH has innovated with materials, including new translucent composites, LED lighting, and most recently, mass timber. The firm is finishing construction of the first timber condominium building in NYC, and recently finished a rammed-earth school in Nepal. The firm believes in integrating the design of built spaces and digital
experiences and has designed many websites, sometimes integrating them into architecture. In 2012, MESH designed an innovative exhibition of medieval manuscripts at The Jewish Museum in New York that used mini video projectors with tailored templates to precisely illuminate the displayed objects, as well as custom millwork with inset iPads. In 2001, MESH designed a multimedia exhibition at White Columns in which the entire gallery was filled with an inflatable environment. For technological innovation, sustainable practices, and excellence in historic preservation, MESH has received awards from a range of organizations, including the Architectural League, the Cambridge Historical Society, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, and Interiors Magazine. mesh.nyc
Treeline Interactive is a product development and incubation firm based in San Diego, CA, specializing in building next gen software that manages and communicates with hardware across many different industries and platforms. With nearly 15 years of experience in hardware and software, and a full-stack team of developers, designers, engineers, and strategists, Treeline has built everything from mobile apps to wearables, iOT solutions with custom hardware and embedded systems, to complex web applications. Together with the visions of our clients and our talented team of experts, we’re here to build dreams into functional products. treelineinteractive.com
