What does it mean to be human in a time permeated by artificial intelligence – now and in the future? In his giant digital installations, Refik Anadol (b. 1985) works with machine learning and artificial intelligence, utilising the data-driven algorithms found everywhere in our everyday life. His installations raise philosophical questions which point to a future where human existence is inextricably linked to data and advanced computer technology – to an even greater extent than today.

Refik Anadol will present three works at ARKEN, one of them created especially for this exhibition. The works take their point of departure in visual presentations of nature found online and on digital media. These gushing waterfalls, sunsets, forests and plains affect our shared ideas about what nature is and what it looks like. Anadol has collected millions of images of nature through the years, compiling vast sets of data. Through AI algorithms, Anadol’s works transform this data into completely new, partially abstract and ever-changing depictions of nature. The main work of the exhibition is the 7 x 7 metre data sculpture Nature Dreams from 2021.

“The Green Land” by Inuk Silis Høegh is a land art project in four stages, representing each of the four elements of the earth: earth, water, fire, air.

All four works are set in Greenland’s nature, and they explore man’s intervention with nature in a time where global environmental issues are knocking on Greenland’s door like never before.

In an ambitious land art project, renowned Greenlandic filmmaker and visual artist Inuk Silis Høegh applies his creative vision to Greenland’s diverse nature. The rugged mountains, deep fjords, majestic ice and lush lowlands all take centre stage, as Silis Høegh intervenes, rearranges, applies colour and adds smoke in an effort to question for how long the Arctic nature will remain untouched.

Within this series I use photography as a tool for myth making. A myth can be used to make sense of the world and oral traditions are often based on myths and folklore as a way of learning and sharing, but these myths exist within the boundaries of the unspoken.

They are open to interpretations but refuse to be fully locked down or understood. In some ways they are resisting. Photographs function in a similar way. The core of what is expressed in an image lies somewhere in the unseen or in its silent associations.

The myth and the photograph thus have a powerful, but also dangerous potential in their trickster way of silently stating the ‘obvious’. What I try to do in this series is to play with these notions by allowing them to join forces.

In this Live photoshoot experience, 10 female strangers will be photographed together naked, walking together as a beautiful herd of the same species. The framework for the project is based on the premise “if we connect, we cannot compare”, and in that it explores what happens to women’s self-image and comparison with others when, under the same premise, they are naked together. The photoshoot will be accompanied by live music, and shortly after thephotoshoot, a digital exhibition will be shown.

In the exhibition, Lærke Posselt enters into an artistic dialogue with the poet Søren R. Fauth. Together and separately, through photography and words, respectively, they have investigated what it means to see. To see the other. To see oneself and the world through the other. The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke is for both of them a point of reference in the question, is it possible to see the world anew and thereby change one's life?

Imagined Futures: Transit Corridors in High Mountain Asia – The Ancient Silk Road is a photo exhibition that sheds light on the challenges between modern development and traditional ways of life.

The exhibition explores possible futures taking the historical, cultural and ecological significance of rural mountain communities as a source of inspiration. The viewers are prompted to question how these communities can overcome the challenges they face today, while imagining how developed societies might be inspired to “rewild” their own way of life.

Separated into three sections – past, present and future – the exhibition includes genres from photojournalism to conceptual art photography, with materials ranging from text, maps, photo prints, projections to audio recordings.