Urban Video Project (UVP) and parent organization Light Work are presenting “We Were Never Human,” a year-long program at UVP and partner organizations that will feature the work of established and emerging artists who explore the shifting idea of what it means to be human, the notion of posthumanism and encounters with the non-human.

Posthumanism has become an umbrella term under which a diverse array of contemporary intellectual currents across all disciplines in the humanities can be grouped. While the term is not unproblematic, it does capture the sense that both a radical rethinking of the humanities/humanism, and a rapprochement between the humanities and the sciences, are an urgent necessity in order to address the most pressing issues that we as a species currently face. Part of this urgency comes from the pressure placed on the very notion of the human by our rapidly changing understanding of ourselves in light of developments in neuroscience and genetics, human-caused climate change, the increasingly sophisticated and insidious forms assumed by biopolitical power, capital’s increasingly neoliberal turn, and exponential advances in computational and communications technologies, to name but a few examples. At the same time, posthumanism entails a decentering of the human subject that opens up critically important questions about how to reconstruct ethics without the notion of an implicitly human “worthy subject” at its center.

UVP’s 2015-2016 program “We Were Never Human” features the work of contemporary artists exploring these complex themes through their content, form and style. Featured artists include Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, the Otolith Group, Mary Mattingly and Saya Woolfalk, among others.

All exhibitions are at UVP Everson, UVP’s permanently installed outdoor architectural projection and sound system projecting onto the façade of the Everson Museum of Art, and all events are in the Everson Museum of Art’s Hosmer Auditorium, unless otherwise noted. All exhibitions and events are free and open to the public.  UVP Everson is part of the Connective Corridor public art program.

Read the SU news story here for a complete line-up of programs and schedule from September 2015 to May 2016:

http://news.syr.edu/uvp-presents-we-were-never-human-a-year-long-program-of-exhibitions-and-events-91951/