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That awareness seems to be the spirit in which Stephanie Rosenthal, artistic director of the 2016 Sydney Biennale, has recycled William Gibson鈥檚 quote about the future already being here, just not very evenly distributed. It is a way of loosely binding the hundreds of artists, artworks and events in the festival.
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On leave from her job as chief curator at the Hayward Gallery in London, the point of the Biennale for Rosenthal, and indeed of Gibson鈥檚 quote, is not to focus on the future. 鈥淲e are thinking about now,鈥� she emphasises, adding that she wants the festival to create a space to observe 鈥渨hat鈥檚 happening right in front of us鈥�.
But given the loose framework, the festival鈥檚 long timeframe and the large number of venues, it benefits from a filter of seven 鈥淓mbassies of Thought鈥�. Rosenthal says the Embassy of Disappearance (Carriageworks, Sydney鈥檚 former Eveleigh Rail Yards, reborn) is what she would have chosen if she could have had only one.
That鈥檚 because disappearance is an idea that many artists closely relate to, she says. Why? Because, says Rosenthal, we have to try to make some futures disappear. Gibson鈥檚 point is that the future is here, now, and that we always make the future from the present, so let鈥檚 think as well as can about where we are now and about which futures we want to imagine.
Otherwise, 鈥渢hings鈥� will just end up happening to us.
Embassy of Disappearance
Among the 20 artworks at the Embassy of Disappearance, three by Singaporean artist Robert Zhao Renhui underscore the idea of unwelcome futures by focusing on Christmas Island鈥檚 endangered or extinct species, and the recent attempts to deal with invasive species.
Renhui spent eight weeks on Christmas Island, speaking with ecologists and documenting attempts to deal with what happens in dynamic ecosystems when invasive species, such as feral cats, dogs and yellow 鈥渃razy鈥� ants, are introduced. His works include Memorial to the Last Cat on Christmas Island, and a fictional conservation plan, Life After Humans 鈥� Rewilding Island Ecosystems, which explores what happens when you take the removal of 鈥渋nvasive species鈥� to its logical end 鈥� relocating the island鈥檚 human communities on the Australian mainland.
Renhui develops this in written for an audience in 2066, long after the humans have been relocated. His pieces play with unintended ecological consequences, such as the which can never be released into the wild听because its natural habitat will never be safe for it.
And he asks deep and perennial questions about what we mean by 鈥渘atural鈥� and 鈥減ristine鈥� when human intervention and invader species come into play.
As an ironic counterpoint to ideas about fragile island ecosystems and invasive species, Christmas Island is currently an offshore detention centre, a place to keep what some consider another form of 鈥渋nvasive species鈥� 鈥� asylum seekers.
Sea cables
Alongside Renhui is disappearance of another kind. Charles Lim鈥檚 silent clap of the status quo, is a collection of 鈥渋nspection videos鈥� of underwater sea cables (which the majority of the world鈥檚 internet communications run through). He uses them to show how artificial infrastructures, often driven by the politics of economic expansion, transform the maritime environment and challenge the cultural idea of the sea as unoccupiable.
Jamie North鈥檚 Succession with its towering, derelict concrete pylons and vibrant plant life bursting through, also calls to mind a post-human world, where plants thrive and grow without us.
One of the most intimate pieces comes under the banner of The Future of Disappearance, curated by writer Andr茅 Lepecki. Here, Mette Edvardsen鈥檚 Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine builds on the plot of Ray Bradbury novel, Fahrenheit 451, where people secretly memorise books to preserve them in a society where banning and burning of all written texts is the norm.
Edvardsen鈥檚 performers have selected a book and memorised it, thereby turning themselves into 鈥渓iving books鈥� who can 鈥渞ead鈥� a particular book to visitors.
This creates a surprisingly intimate experience as you listen to a performer who is always on the edge of remembering and forgetting: an uncomfortable meditation on the nature of the ephemeral.
In an 鈥渁fter鈥� talk, Lepecki underlined one of the less obvious upsides to disappearance 鈥� the freedom it can create and how being without reference points opens up a huge array of future options that can be taken from the present. This connects to another work in his collection, also by Edvardsen, called No Title.
Here Edvardsen gradually removes all reference points, with a seemingly never-ending list of everything that has 鈥済one鈥�: walls, compass points, and eventually lights, so that part of the work is performed in the dark. 鈥淚n total disorientation what happens is you have a total potentiality to reorient life,鈥� says Lepecki.
Now there鈥檚 an interesting way to deal with the future, spread evenly or otherwise.
The 20th Biennale of Sydney is on until 5 June
