New Museum Exhibition Explores Historical and Contemporary Visions of Humanity's Technological Future

The New Museum in New York has reopened with an exhibition titled 'New Humans: Memories of the Future,' which examines how 20th-century and contemporary artists have envisioned humanity's relationship with technology. The show includes hundreds of works that address themes of automation, mechanization, and the human body. Among the featured pieces is Simon Denny's 'Amazon Worker Cage,' a physical realization of a 2016 Amazon patent for a lockable metal enclosure designed to protect workers from robotic systems. Historical contributions include Marcel Duchamp's 1912 painting 'Bride,' which portrays marriage through mechanical components, and Francis Picabia's works depicting women as machinery. The exhibition also presents El Lissitzky's 1920-21 drawings of the 'New Man,' a steel-girder construct intended for a Russian Futurist opera, and a film of Oskar Schlemmer's 'Triadic Ballet' from 1970, where dancers performed in restrictive geometric costumes. Contemporary artists like Jenna Sutela contribute works such as 'HMO Nutrix,' a fountain dispensing artificial breast milk. Curator Massimiliano Gioni highlights parallels between early 20th-century totalitarian regimes and modern forms of fascism, while the exhibition broadly questions what it means to be human in an increasingly automated world. The artworks serve as both warnings and inspirations regarding technological futures, emphasizing art's enduring role in shaping imagination beyond the limitations of patents or practical implementations.