Light Work’s Urban Video Project (UVP)  are pleased to announce “UVP 2015-16: 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 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 practice.

“We Were Never Human” Main Exhibitions & Events:

Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel of Sensory Ethnography Lab: Leviathan
Sept. 17- Oct. 24, 2015
Thursday-Saturday, dusk-11 p.m.
Screening, Q&A and reception: Thursday, Oct. 15, 6:30 p.m. (Lucien Castaing-Taylor in person!)

The Otolith Group: Anathema
Nov. 5-Dec. 19, 2015
Thursday-Saturday, dusk-11 p.m.
Screening of The Radiant, Q&A and reception: Thursday, Nov. 12, 6:30 p.m. (live streaming Q&A with Kodwo Eshun at the Everson)

Mary Mattingly: Human & Object 
UVP: Jan. 20-30, 2016
Light Work: Jan. 19-March 10, 2016
Gallery talk and reception at Light Work: Thursday, Jan. 28, 5-7 p.m.

Between Species: group show
Feb. 11-March 26, 2016
Curated screening and panel talk: Thursday, March 10, 6:30 p.m.

Saya Woolfalk: ChimaCloud
February-May 2016 in the Everson’s Robineau and Cloud-Wampler Galleries
April 7-May 28, 2016, at UVP Everson
Artist talk and reception: Thursday, April 14, 6:30 p.m.