In his latest exhibition, internationally renowned artist Christopher Kulendran Thomas explores a vision of a future beyond nation-states, based on a new internet built and owned by its users
Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW) and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) London today announced that Christopher Kulendran Thomas’s latest exhibition, Another World, will debut at the ICA on October 11, during Frieze Week, with a press preview on October 10. Another World is produced in partnership with KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, where the exhibition will be presented in parallel from October 22, and with Kunsthalle Zürich, where it will open in June 2023.
Developed together with longtime collaborator Annika Kuhlmann, Another World features Kulendran Thomas’s new film installation The Finesse, which leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to create a vision of a future beyond nation-states — a vision based on a new internet built and owned by its users. The work is developed from research by Tamil diaspora community groups of the de facto state of Eelam. This is Kulendran Thomas’s family homeland in the North and East of today’s Sri Lanka, which was wiped out through the ethnic cleansing that ended the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009.
“The Finesse explores the difficulties of telling the story of the losing side of a conflict when history has already been written by the winners,” said Christopher Kulendran Thomas. With social media platforms instrumentalized to extend the work of the Sri Lankan state in censoring Eelam Tamil history, The Finesse examines some of the lost legacies of this liberation movement and demonstrates the need for decentralized technologies that ensure culturally significant information persists over time.
Blurring the boundaries between historical research and a sci-fi proposition for an alternate reality, The Finesse looks at how the art, architecture, and technology that were lost with the defeat of the de facto state of Eelam could today inform a radically different idea of the future. This future is already in motion with the advent of decentralized storage technologies that preserve humanity’s information, and is expressed as a progressive hope in Kulendran Thomas’s work.
Another World will occupy all of the ICA’s galleries, with The Finesse presented across five monolithic screens and an immersive projection. Installed in the upper galleries, Being Human (2019) takes the viewer on an elliptical journey around Sri Lanka, from the fallout of the civil war to the biennial of contemporary art founded in its aftermath. Combining real people’s lived experiences with algorithmically synthesized characters, the film features various guests of the Colombo Art Biennale, including a world-famous pop star and a renowned painter, as well as Kulendran Thomas’s uncle, a family hero who established the Centre for Human Rights in Tamil Eelam.
Alongside the two film installations, the exhibition presents a series of newly commissioned paintings that extend Kulendran Thomas’s use of artificial intelligence technologies. Exhibited together with works by Aṇaṅkuperuntinaivarkal Inkaaleneraam, a leading light of the Eelam artistic resistance, the paintings are made using machine-learning algorithms trained on the work of Kulendran Thomas’ Sri Lankan peers, artists influenced by the Western art historical canon who have become successful in the aftermath of the Sri Lankan civil war.
A talks program will accompany Another World, developed in conjunction with KW Institute for Contemporary Art, with talks presented in partnership with FFDW and the RadicalxChange Foundation. On November 2, the ICA will host the inaugural event: a conversation with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin on decentralized societies, exploring the possibilities of using new technologies to build communities founded on fairer systems. The talk program will mark the launch of earth.net, a research and development studio to devise shared tools for new ways of living, based at the ICA from November 2 through the duration of the exhibition.
“We are honored to share this extraordinary work at the ICA. Given the circumstances of the past year globally, from intermittent internet shutdowns to the spread of misinformation online, The Finesse contributes to the vital conversations around the decentralization of the internet and offers an alternative vision for the future of the web,” said Bengi Ünsal, Director, Institute of Contemporary Arts.
“We are thrilled to play a role in helping to bring this important new work to the world,” said Marta Belcher, President and Chair of Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web. “We are dedicated to building a better internet and permanently preserving humanity’s most important information — two key themes of this work.”
Another World by Christopher Kulendran Thomas is initiated by Stefan Kalmár, produced in partnership with Kunsthalle Zürich and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin and realized with the generous support of Filecoin Foundation and Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in Fine Arts and Henry Moore Foundation with additional support from Adam Hall Group. With special thanks to Samir Bantal, OMA|AMO, RadicalxChange Foundation and satis&fy.
To learn more, https://www.ica.art/
About Christopher Kulendran Thomas
Christopher Kulendran Thomas is an artist, of Tamil descent, who spent his formative years in London after his family left escalating civil unrest in Sri Lanka. Seeing, mostly from a distance, how an ascendent contemporary art scene in Sri Lanka blossomed from the ashes of ethnic cleansing on the island, Christopher began examining the structural processes by which art produces reality — by which art transforms cities and builds nations. Often utilizing advanced technologies, Christopher’s work looks at various, as yet unrealized, possibilities at the intersection of culture, technology and citizenship. His work is represented in major collections, like that of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and recent exhibitions include Oh, Gods of Dust And Rainbows, Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art (2022); Uncanny Valley: Being Human in the Age of AI, de Young Museum San Francisco (2020); and Time, Forward!, V–A–C Zattere for the 58th Venice Biennale (2019); as well as solo shows at Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2019); Institute for Modern Art, Brisbane (2019); Spike Island, Bristol (2019); and Tensta konsthall, Stockholm (2017). Kulendran Thomas’ work has been included in the 7th Bi City Biennale, Shenzhen (2017); the 11th Gwangju Biennale; the 9th Berlin Biennale; and the 3rd Dhaka Art Summit (all 2016); as well as in Alternatives for Living, Kunstmuseen Krefeld (2019); I was raised on the internet, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2018); moving is in every direction, Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2017); Bread and Roses, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2016); Co-Workers: Network As Artist, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2015); and Art Turning Left: How Values Changed Making, Tate Liverpool (2013).