Exhibition opening: Thursday, 10 April, at 7 p. m. in the Gallery of Contemporary Art.
The exhibition entitled The Artificial, the Natural, and the Ecosystem of Trust explores the current trends at the intersection of art, science and technology in Slovenia. It focuses on one of the most complex, innovative and exciting fields of contemporary creation – research-based art and robotics.
At a time when high-tech advances are increasingly blurring the boundaries between the natural and the artificial, and signalling a profoundly transformed future, we are also faced with growing uncertainty and fear of their misuse. The dramatic deepening and proliferation of crisis situations, the fragility of peace and the norms governing stability, and the unfathomable presence of cruelty, together with the increasing focus on nothing but profit, further exacerbate these dilemmas. This is why the exhibition, in contrast, by focusing on the concept of connectedness, cooperation and coexistence between machines, biological life and inanimate nature, centres on trust. The idea of coexistence, based on a partnership and ethical relationship and perceiving the world as a communal space of interconnectedness of all that exists, is explored in seven works of art. These are mostly installations created during the past five years or their upgrades, while the pieces Gladina by Boštjan and Luka Drinovec and Let the Machines Do More Work by Dominik Mahnič will be shown for the first time. The four exhibition spaces of the Gallery of Contemporary Art are inhabited by wind, a bismuth crystal, a paint-applying robot, artificial intelligence algorithms, photosymbiotic flatworms, an android, micro-robots, Vietnamese Annam walking stick insects, a stick insect robot, a robotic plotter, etc.
We are opening the exhibition in April, a month that, for the second year in a row, is marked by the latest technological advancements through the Festival of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence at Tehnopark Celje.
THE ARTIFICIAL, THE NATURAL, AND THE ECOSYSTEM OF TRUST
Stefan Doepner, Boštjan Drinovec and Luka Drinovec, Miha Godec, Zoran Srdić Janežič, Maša Jazbec, Dominik Mahnič, Dmitry Morozov (::vtol::)
Achievements in the development of advanced technology are pushing boundaries and bringing new understanding. They already have a strong impact on the present and are heralding a radically transformed future with completely new relationships on many levels. The advancement of self-learning machines capable of autonomous thinking and decision-making is unfolding at an unprecedented pace. While on the one hand it is fascinating for the benefits it brings, on the other it represents uncertainty, mistrust and a new threat in the face of political and economic interests, control and a constant state of war. Reflection on the responsible use of technology has become as important as its development, if not more so. Posthumanist thinking, which transcends the anthropocentric paradigm of understanding the world and emphasises the need to change how we relate to the nonhuman other, including technology, has become essential. In the book Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Donna Haraway points out that nothing is created, evolves or changes in and of itself, because everything around us and together with us, everything that exists, is connected, intertwined and always becoming-with the other. The key to accepting responsibility and making better decisions is the perception of the bonds through which we are inseparably connected to others, be it plant, animal, inanimate nature or a machine, as “kinship bonds” — because above all, such an understanding of the relationship strengthens mutual care, problem-solving, and a better social and environmental future.
The exhibition The Artificial, the Natural, and the Ecosystem of Trust introduces the concept of coexistence, co-creation and becoming-with through artworks that incorporate robotics. Through the selection of the artworks, in which the natural and the artificial intertwine and merge, and which were mostly created in Slovenia over the past five years, we are guided toward perceiving the world as a communal space. In such a space, identities and existences are shaped through relationships and interactions that, instead of being based on exploitation and abuse, are founded on the complex dynamics of mutual adaptation, support, and coexistence.
The author of the paintings by Dominik Mahnič (Let the Machines Do More of the Work, 2025) is not merely the artist alone, nor just technology, they were created in close collaboration between the two. The Brushograph is the artists latest version of his image-creating machines, which persistently draws strokes, applies layers of paint or wipes off the brush. Even though it is based on algorithms and the artist’s precise instructions, this robot painter appears as an autonomous entity that, while adhering to the data, also imparts an aesthetically distinct authorial mark to the work — particularly through random variations and a unique texture it brings to the surface of the paintings. At the heart of Boštjan and Luka Drinovec’s interactive installation Gladina (The Surface, 2025) lies a deep fascination with nature and a refined choreography, shaped by the intertwining of machine and wind. This introduces activity into the machine, determined by its strength, direction, and duration, lending it a semblance of “life” as it sets in motion, via interfaces, the rippling of twelve geometric panels that compose the installation’s surface. Conversely, it is the activity of the machine that lends visibility to an otherwise invisible natural phenomenon. Many researchers are comparing the growth of specific crystals with the development and growth of large cities, aiming to highlight the similarities in the way complex systems evolve. In Navigator (2021) by Dmitry Morozov, a machine creates by observing the repeating patterns of a bismuth crystal. It draws its “inspiration” from nature, transforming the fractal structures of a crystal into fictional visual forms that strongly resemble maps. Since 2019, Zoran Srdić Janežič, together with a team of experts, has been developing the Biobot project, which aims to combine biological, electronic, hardware and data components to create a hybrid organism that can move and has cognitive abilities. The way the biological robot moves and the shape it takes are determined by signals from neural cells and an evolutionary algorithm, which interprets these signals to identify and suggest the organism’s optimal configuration for navigating a given environment. The combination of in vitro and artificial intelligence creates a new form of life that lies between the artificial and the natural and, as the artist points out, raises several philosophical and ethical questions, including the question of the rights of the beings thus created. Roscoffensis I/O installation (2023–24) by Miha Godec focuses on the symbiotic relationship between the flatworm Symsagittifera roscoffensis and algae — the worm consumes the algae but does not digest them, instead hosting them in a layer beneath its epidermis. Its symbiosis with algae allows it to produce its own oxygen and food, achieving self-sufficiency, which — combined with its capacity for self-regeneration — has made it a focus of extensive scientific research. Together with a robot that “nurtures” these three-to-five-millimetre plant-animal organisms, the installation prompts reflection on caring for others, working together and nature’s delicate balance. Through advances in science and technology, nanorobots, microbiological machines, and other artificial microparticles join the web of alliances within the human body among the colonies of microbes. The future of such a symbiotic ecosystem in the human body is the subject of Stefan Doepner’s Microbot V.4 project, who in his work focuses mainly on the partnership between people — the artists — and between man and machine. The project is based on the idea of a robot that could, over time become small enough to be able to enter the human body. What is to become of the programmed entities trapped in a loop of infinity if humans are no more is the question of the installation Osamljenost strojev (The Loneliness of Machines, 2024) by Maša Jazbec, which discusses self-awareness, memory and the melancholy of technology that is left without its creator, purpose and meaning. Jazbec, whose main focus is the interaction between humans and robots, hybrid bodies and the advantages of a symbiotic relationship between the artificial and the natural for humans and other living beings, no longer asks “who are we and where are we going”, but “who or what will succeed us” in this project in which the machine misses humanity.
The Celje Regional Museum – Center for Contemporary Arts
Director: Stane Rozman
Curator of the exhibition: Irena Čerčnik
Text: Irena Čerčnik
Proofreading and translation: Lingua service
Graphic design: Neža Penca
Supported by: Municipality of Celje
Technical support: Alen Đudarić, Matjaž Ernecl, Nada Šmid, Verica Zorko
