NOX by Lawrence Lek

NOX, 2023. © Lawrence Lek. Courtesy the Artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London. Commissioned by LAS Art Foundation, Berlin.

NOX is a visionary site-specific solo exhibition by Lawrence Lek, one of the world’s leading contemporary artists working at the intersection of science and technology. Blending the diverse strands of his multidisciplinary practice – architecture, gaming, filmmaking, speculative fiction and music, the London-based artist builds an immersive environment exploring the psychological consequences of a future populated by smart systems and intelligent machines.

NOX – short for Nonhuman Excellence – delves into the consciousness of machines and explores the architecture of a future smart city. Featuring interactive game stations, immersive soundscapes, videos and specially designed scenography, NOX plunges visitors into a futuristic metropolis where the fictional Farsight Corporation, an Anglo-Chinese technology conglomerate, tests and rehabilitates its fleet of disobedient autonomous vehicles. Within this speculative world, visitors encounter Enigma 76, a self-driving car learning to balance autonomy and emotion as well as the
caregiving robot Guanyin (named after the Goddess of Mercy) that oversees the rehabilitation process of these non-compliant machines.

NOX invites visitors to witness the potential consequences of the integration of advanced artificial intelligence entities in future urban life, illuminating both the promise and peril of intelligent machines as the world accelerates through an era defined by automation and artificial intelligence. The exhibition prompts reflection on agency, ethics and empathy between humans and the thinking machines they create, urging a re-examination of what it means for a future populated by sentient technologies.

This expansive and immersive exhibition marks the Southeast Asian debut of NOX, originally commissioned by Berlin-based LAS Art Foundation and presented in collaboration with Farsight Corporation. Farsight was first conceived as an AI-driven tech monopoly in Lek’s science fiction film Geomancer, set in the year 2065 and produced in 2017. The following year, Lek launched Farsight as a real-life production company to produce his artworks, using the creative strategy of hyperstition – where a speculative idea becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The new adaptation at ArtScience Museum marks Lek’s first solo exhibition in the region and the Museum’s commitment to presenting future-shaping projects at the intersection of art, science and technology.