• Group Exhibition
  • Power Plant, Toronto, Canada
  • 2009

Universal Code

Universal Code: Art and Cosmology in the Information Age Artists: Adel Abdessemed, Franz Ackermann, Angela Bulloch, Mircea Cantor, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, Cerith Wyn Evans, Henrik Hakansson, Antonia Hirsch, Thomas Hirschhorn, Ann Veronica Janssens, Kimsooja, Jed Lind, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle, Josiah McElheny, Tania Mouraud, Gabriel Orozco, Adrian Paci, Trevor Paglen, Katie Paterson, The Otolith Group, Fred Tomaselli, Keith Tyson. Curated by Gregory Burke, Director, The Power Plant. Whereas once the sky suggested the limitless, now a network of satellites enmesh the globe in a massive field of signals that unite the world in a "universal" web of telecommunications. Enabling instantaneous connection across vast distances, the new technologies also render visible what was formerly hidden at the bodily and even the cellular level. Corporate communications networks and digital technologies have in effect refigured the contemporary sense of the world and the universe by transforming historical understandings of time and space. In response to this current condition, 'Universal Code' presents artists who look back on the modern era to consider the universe, the infinite and the eternal from a range of differing religious, scientific, philosophical and cultural positions. Works in the exhibition draw and reflect on scientific discoveries related to the universe and the nature of life, from the mapping of intergalactic space, through to research into the microcosmic world of DNA coding. However, the exhibition is not purely a celebration of scientific and technological advance. While many artists seek to engage the viewer in the awe and enigma of concepts of the universe, they are also concerned with shifts in the geo-political order brought on by the digital revolution, coupled with unresolved tensions that exist between differing belief systems. Gregory Burke, Universal Code, p.17