Alexander Scholz (DE)

The speed of time and the length of the journey are only relative parameters of the expedition. On his journey, the pilgrim discovers other dimensions, experiences encounters with unpredictable phenomena, environments, natural elements that transcend him. The traveler consciously steps out of the comfort of his home ecosystem and sets up a traveler's ecosystem that has different rules. The artist explores the course of the journey, constructs scenarios of personal experiences, establishes imaginative spaces of fantastic dreamscapes, residues of our predecessors, centuries passed and great hopes. Civilizations have been shaped by journeys and social changes are happening continuously, it is not easy to notice because we are part of them. Whether it's a walking pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela or an ambitious flight to Mars, however significant the destination seems, the essentials are likely to happen along the way. That is why we set the journey as the motif of our artistic research and as its main goal.

The boundary between human and machine activity is increasingly blurred with each technological advancement. What techno-human ecosystems are we creating? Are these ecosystems intentionally designed, or are they merely accidental consequences? What are the opportunities and limitations of collaboration between humans and machines? What are the dynamics of this collaboration in creative and artistic processes? How can interdisciplinary cooperation support innovation in policy?

The parallel world in the form of machine and robot systems generates in society not only ambivalent feelings of oscillation between utility and threat, but also a never-ending series of outstanding works of art in literature, film and visual arts. The tension that arises between the living human and the "animated" machine is one of the most topical lines among the energetic themes in art. At a time when control over many vital resources is being handed over to data centre algorithms, there is an almost parallel increase in the level of anxiety, fear, or feelings of loss of control over the previously valid ecosystem. The works presented in the chapter Machinery Missionaries refer precisely to this ambivalence of autonomous machines and at the same time insistently recall the old Faustian question of the possibilities and limits of human knowledge.

Technology enables discovery, exploration, and new understanding of the universe we are a part of. How deep can we go? How does the connection between art and science contribute to discovery? Can the Moon become our next home?

We can understand the dimensions that transcend us with the help of mathematics, physics, computing, statistics and other artificial tools. These not only give us the illusion that we understand our universe, but also the illusion of order that reflects the nightmares of perceived chaos. But we refuse to acknowledge that this illusion has gradually become law. The space we call the Universe seems to have multiple possible interpretations, and meanwhile advanced data systems are gradually building a parallel, virtual, imprint of it. Scientific models and explanations of the nature and origin of the Universe, like other theories, have naturally gone through phases of acceptance and transcendence. Do we now find ourselves once again in a similar era that, albeit without corporal punishment, is moving on to another paradigm of interpretation of the physical nature of matter and the universe? How many more interpretations and plausible theories will have to gradually fall before we finally find the answer?