The World Without Us

Artists: Morehshin Allahyari (Iran/US) & Daniel Rourke (UK), Timo Arnall (Norway), LaTurbo Avedon (US), Will Benedict (US/France), David Claerbout (Belgium), Laurent Grasso (France), Sidsel Meineche Hansen (Denmark/UK), Wanuri Kahiu (Kenya), Ignas Krunglevicius (Lithuania/Norway), Mark Leckey (UK), Eva & Franco Mattes (Italy/US), Yuri Pattison (Ireland/UK), Julien Prévieux (France), Suzanne Treister (UK), Pinar Yoldas (Turkey/US)

Curated by Inke Arns 

The World Without Us is an exhibition proposed and curated by Inke Arns. It asks how the world would look like if we subtracted the human factor, or rather, what are the non-human actors that are increasingly populating the world. The exhibition does not intend to conjure up a post-catastrophic scenario—rather, the world without us is understood as the result of a gradual development that is at work already today.

The tools for the creation of a world without us are readily available. The first driverless cars are driving on our streets, dating websites are populated by chat bots simulating activity and interest, newspaper articles are compiled by algorithms, and translations are made by machines. Already in 2006 one third of all the shares in the EU and in the US were traded by algorithms. We can only speculate about the current percentage.

In a not so distant world without us, humans will be replaced by machines, Artificial Intelligences will be optimized by other AIs, and algorithms will be programmed by self-learning algorithms. In this way a radically different, post-anthropocentric world could develop where non-human life forms would eventually prove to be better adaptable than humans. 

The artists in this exhibition—from Iran, the US, Turkey, France, Kenya, Lithuania, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Italy and the UK—explore the possibility of an ecology after man—an age of the post-anthropocene, in which other “life” forms, such as algorithms, AIs, artificially created nano-particles, genetically modified micro-organisms and seemingly monstrous plants, have taken control of the world. This new era, which has already begun, albeit imperceptibly, is the age of non-human actors.

There is a total of 16 works by 15 international artists and artists groups on view in the exhibition. The world without us is described in very different ways in these works using a broad variety of media—(video) installations, drawings/watercolour, sculptures, short films and videos—and various non-human actors have their say.


Free admission on the first Wednesday of every month
Free admission for minors (under 18)

Guided tours:
Thursdays 6pm, Sundays/public holidays 4pm
Guided tours are included in the admission fee

Press contact:
Franziska Kipper, presse@hmkv.de

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