EXTENDED: Sougwen Chung - BODY MACHINE (MERIDIANS)
Opening: 18 November 2025, 10.00
Duration of the exhibition: 18. 11. - 30. 11.
Historical Hall, Hlavná 27, Košice
Admission to this exhibition is free of charge.
BODY MACHINE (MERIDIANS) is a series of biomimetic robotic objects created in the air that reimagine machines as part of living systems - not as tools, but as partners. The project builds on the notion of the 'meridian' and creates a space for thinking about the connections between the movement of the human body, machine forms and the Earth's ecosystems. The work draws on the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon, who saw the machine as a product of the cultural imagination. Chung builds on this idea and develops the notion of the machine as a sentient, responsive and creative partner. BODY MACHINE (MERIDIANS) invites the viewer to think about how the body, technology and the landscape interact - and where the boundaries between them become blurred.
Sougwen 愫君 Chung (b. 1985) is a Chinese-Canadian artist and researcher who is widely recognized as a pioneer in the field of human-machine collaboration - exploring the trace made by the hand and the trace made by the machine as an approach to understanding the dynamics between humans and systems. Sougwen's work, entitled MEMORY (Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 2), is part of the Victoria and Albert Museum's permanent collection and is the first model of artificial intelligence to be included in the collection of a major institution. Recently, Chung was recognized as a Cultural Leader at the World Economic Forum and included in TIME magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in AI.
Chung has exhibited internationally at institutions such as: Espoo Museum of Modern Art (Espoo), Vancouver Art Gallery (Vancouver), Art Basel (Miami), National Art Center (Tokyo), NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC] (Tokyo), ArtScience Museum (Singapore), MIT Media Lab (Cambridge), The Drawing Center (New York), The New Museum (New York), Museum of Contemporary Art (Geneva), Haus der Kunst (Munich), Mana Contemporary (New York), M+ Museum (Hong Kong), Boston Art Center (Boston), Tribeca Film Festival (New York), Francisco Carolinum (Linz), Singapore International Festival of Arts, Pearl Art Museum (Shanghai), and V&A Museum (London).
Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets including Art in America, Artnet, Artsy, BBC, Dazed and Confused, Designboom, EXIT Magazine, Fast Company, Financial Times, Forbes, Irish Times, Noema Magazine, NOWNESS, Seattle Times, Superrare, TED, The Art Newspaper, The Atlantic, The Jakarta Post, The New Yorker, The New York Times, TIME Magazine, USA Today, Wallpaper, The Washington Post, and Wired.
As a former TED speaker and researcher at the MIT Media Lab, Chung has spoken at international conferences including the United Nations (Geneva), World Economic Forum (Davos and China), Oxford University, SIGGRAPH Conference (Vancouver), Global Art Forum (Singapore), World Science Festival (New York), Cannes Lions (Cannes), Gaia Art Foundation (London), for UNESCO, and at the Tribeca Film Festival Interactive (New York).
Chung was named to the TIME100 AI list for excellence in the arts and sciences, was awarded Woman of the Year in Monaco, received the Lumen Prize for Art in Technology, was the first artist-in-residence of the E.A.T. in collaboration with the New Museum and Bell Labs, was selected to implement the Omnia per Omnia project, and received the Excellence Award for Drawing Operations at the Japan Media Arts Festival.
In addition, she has received artist residencies at companies and institutions such as Google, Studio Wayne McGregor, Laurenz Haus Basel, Eyebeam, Japan Media Arts, and Pier 9 Autodesk. She is also the founder of SCILICET, an experimental studio based in London.
The Extended project has the ambition to create a space for a more regular and meaningful presentation of new media art in the city of Košice. It also builds on the vision of Košice as a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities of Media Arts network and seeks to fulfil its potential by supporting contemporary digital art forms.
'The project is supported by the City of Košice'