COPENHAGEN.- Why does technology evoke so much fear – and so much hope? A new international group exhibition at Copenhagen Contemporary explores the soul of technology.


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Soft Robots is the title of this year’s major exhibition at Copenhagen Contemporary (CC), opening on June 20th and taking over the first two halls of the art center – a total of 1,700 m2 – with sensory and thought-provoking world- class art. The exhibition brings together 15 prominent international contemporary artists and Danish talents working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, and spiritual longing: Can the artificial be authentic? Can a robot touch our emotions?


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Many of the featured artists are being shown in Denmark for the first time. With an experimental and critical approach, they search for the breath and soul that may be hiding in the cityscapes of the future, among doppelgängers, and poetic machines. Through its curatorial framework, CC uses the group exhibition format to spark a conversation about the role of technology in our lives – a conversation where conflicting theories and irreconcilable viewpoints exist side by side in the same physical space.

The exhibition includes large-scale installations, interactive works, and digital experiments that engage both body and mind. Several works have been created specifically for the exhibition at CC. It opens with a sculptural installation by Czech artist Klára Hosnedlová, who presents human-sized cocoons as a symbol of transformation. Korean artist Ayoung Kim takes us to a futuristic version of Seoul, where motorcycle couriers are guided by the algorithm Dancemaster, while Japanese British duo A.A. Murakami have created a meditative space filled with giant machine generated bubbles that slowly dissolve into nothing. Musicians and media activists Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst contribute an AI-driven work that generates real time digital versions of Holly, raising critical questions about who controls our digital ”persona” in an age where AI models transform everything into data and the exit door is hard to find. The work recently sparked widespread debate about artists’ rights when two images were sold at Christie’s.

“Soft Robots is about the point where technology and humanity merge. The artists in the exhibition don’t use technology as an effect, but as a tool to explore emotions, ethics, and existence in a time where the line between human and machine is increasingly blurred. I believe we all need space for reflection amid the acceleration of technology – and that’s exactly what art provides,” says Marie Laurberg, Director of Copenhagen Contemporary

Artificial Sensitivity and Techno-Spirituality

The title Soft Robots refers both to soft, biologically inspired robots and to the idea of a new kind of technological sensitivity – a softness in how we understand and interact with the non-human.

The exhibition explores how technologies, often viewed as cold and controlling, can also foster connection, empathy, and transformation. Its concept draws on a deep cultural and historical interest in the projections we place onto technology, especially through art. Several of its themes trace back to Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Nightingale, which is rarely referenced in a science fiction context. Here, the robot is a mechanical bird attempting to replace nature’s song – or true art. What do we lose when we hand over sensibility to the machine? And what might we gain?

The exhibition features living organisms, robotic sculptures, performative installations, and sensory experiences that appeal to the whole body. It is an exhibition to be felt as well as thought – and one that insists art can serve as a different language for the future, distinct from that of Big Tech.

A Focus on Pan-Asian Artists

Several of the featured artists have roots in Japan and Korea, and their works speak from a cultural perspective with a different understanding of technology than the classical European dualism between nature and technology. Shintoism, which has influenced pan-Asian cultures, includes eight million gods and a flatter hierarchy, where both nature and objects possess a soul – a spiritual logic that permeates everyday life and reflects a more fluid relationship between humans and technology.

New Works Developed Through Collide Copenhagen

Over the past three years, CC has hosted the prestigious residency program Collide Copenhagen, in collaboration with the Arts at CERN at CERN Institute in Geneva. Artists Joan Heemskerk, Alice Bucknell, and Martyna Marciniak spent time at CERN and CC to develop their artistic practices through scientific and curatorial exchange.

For the exhibition, Alice Bucknell has created the new work Small Void: Small Void is a collaborative two-player call-and-response game that draws on paradoxes of black holes and quantum entanglement and was developed in dialogue with theoretical physicists at CERN. It also functions as a queer dating simulator, exploring the tensions and transformations of love. The work touches on themes of distant longing, miscommunication, and how the world – as an active participant – changes those who move through it.

Catalogue

The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue with contributions from Marie Laurberg (Director, CC), Laura Tripaldi, Hans Christian Andersen, and work texts by Line Wium Olesen (Curator, CC) and Rasmus Wegener (Assistant Curator, CC).

Artists featured in the exhibition

A.A. Murakami (UK/J), Alice Bucknell (US), Ayoung Kim (KR), Daria Martin (US), Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst (US/UK), Joan Heemskerk (NL), Jonas Kjeldgaard Sørensen (DK), Klára Hosnedlová (CZ), Martyna Marciniak (PL), Nanna Debois Buhl (DK), Rhoda Ting & Mikkel Bojesen (AUS/DK), Silas Inoue (DK/J), Takashi Murakami (J), WangShui (US), Yunchul Kim (KR)

Curated by Copenhagen Contemporary.