Real Feelings: Technology and Emotion at HeK Basel

The exhibition 'Real Feelings – Émotions et technologie' at the Haus der elektronischen Künste (HeK) in Basel, running from August 27 to November 15, 2020, brings together installations by about twenty artists to reconsider the notion of feeling in a technological society. Curated by Sabine Himmelsbach, Ariane Koek, and Angelique Spaninks, the show explores how emotions are represented and controlled through technology. Ed Fornieles' video installation 'Test Studies' (2017) juxtaposes 3D role-playing game simulations with emotional commentary from a player describing a catastrophic disease scenario, eerily prescient of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cécile B. Evans' 'How Happy a Thing Can Be' (2014) animates everyday objects like scissors, a comb, and a screwdriver, evoking surrealist painting and Lamartine's poetry. Maija Tammi's photographic series 'One of Them Is a Human' (2017) documents robots from Hiroshi Ishiguro's lab, challenging viewers to distinguish human from android. The London collective Troika's 'Terminal Beach' (2020) depicts a robotic arm in fur relentlessly cutting the last tree on Earth, a cynical commentary on environmental destruction. Dani Ploeger's VR piece 'The Grass Smells So Sweet' (2018) collects testimonies from survivors of gunshot wounds to the head, linking cinema and video game adrenaline. The exhibition questions whether emotions remain uniquely human as machines become more lifelike.