Thinking through technology – 1854 Photography

A new exhibition and the THEA space in Groningen, Netherlands, use art to think through technology and human experience, explains curator and director Roosje Klap

Last year the Nooderlicht Biennale was themed Machine Entanglements and, including exhibitions by 75 artists across the northern Dutch city of Groningen, explored “how we now live, eat, sleep, dream and even date through technology,” says Roosje Klap, director of Nooderlicht, the platform for photography and lens-based media. The shows in one venue, THEA, focused on extraction – the “ugly monster” which makes technology, as Klap puts it – and, working in the building, she was called to reception one day. “There was this guy, maybe about 55, and he was very emotional because he had seen all this for the first time,” she explains. 

“He had known about it, but this was the first time he had really seen it. That was very important for me, very touching, but then he asked, ‘Is there any hope? Because I don’t see any hope, only sadness and terrible feelings’. And that’s when I started to wonder, what’s the way out? There must be a way out, how can we escape, or what’s the antidote?” That insight led to the latest exhibition at THEA, Thinking Hands, which explores how embodied knowledge endures in our ever-more technological age.