'Are We Human' Exhibit Comes To Princeton University Next Week

PRINCETON, NJ — "Are We Human?: The Design of the Species: 2 seconds, 2 days, 2 years, 200 years, 200,000 years" is a kaleidoscope of artistic, technical, philosophical, theoretical and ethical reflection on the intimate relation between “design” and “human.”

It is designed by Andres Jaque and the Office for Political Innovation, an international practice that explores material politics at the intersection of design, research and activism.

The entire Princeton University School of Architecture will be filled with a dense collage of overlapping works by architects, artists, designers, scientists, filmmakers, research groups and think tanks, resulting in the creation of the exhibit.

The exhibit will be on display from Nov. 6, 2017, through Jan. 5, 2018. It is the first time the exhibition will be shown in the United States. Curators Beatriz Colomina, of Princeton University, and Mark Wigley, of Columbia University, will give a presentation and gallery talk on Nov. 6, 5 p.m., in the School of Architecture building.

Among the works featured are:

• “Unspoken” by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, which explores Darwin's observation that only humans blush.
• A project by Forensic Architecture that considers the question of whether orangutans should be granted human rights.
• “Microbial Design Studio,” an inexpensive automated and networked countertop biofabrication machine to design, culture and test genetically modified organisms, by Orkan Telhan.
• A presentation of the latest thinking about the brain from leading brain scientists from the Seung Lab at Princeton University and the Zuckerman Institute at Columbia University.
• A piece by MOS Architects that wraps space with an army of unemployed scale figures.

The exhibit is supplemented by a set of special installations prepared by the curators and a joint team of Princeton University and Columbia University students.

Exhibition participants include:

Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Eyal Weizman and Forensic Architecture, Hito Steyerl, Marshmallow Laser Feast, MOS Architects, Armin Linke, Philipp Meuser, Galina Balashova, Francois Dallegret, Center for Land Use Interpretation, Laura Kurgan, Orkan Telhan, Lu Yang, Tom Keenan and Sohrab Mohebbi, Lorenzo Pezzani, Common Accounts, Daniel Eisenberg, Juan Herreros, Sebastian Seung, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Lucia Allais, Joyce Hsiang and Bimal Mendis, Lydia Kallipoliti, Andreas Theodoridis, Ali Kazma, Axel Kilian, Spyros Papapetros, V. Mitch McEwen, and Universal Space Program.

For more information, visit https://soa.princeton.edu/arewehuman.

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