DE SARTHE is pleased to present its third solo exhibition for its represented, Beijing-based artist Zhong Wei, titled Weight Drifting. The exhibition is a continuation of the artist’s ongoing exploration of the contemporary socio-technological landscape and its unchecked fostering of transhumanism. Featuring a new body of works on canvas, the exhibited artworks initiate a dialogue regarding the invisible shift in power dynamics between man and machine, consequential to the advancement of artificial intelligence but also the atrophy of manual effort enabled by accelerationist technology. Under the brush of Zhong Wei, the metamorphoses of digital textures into organic entities appear as if a study of living subjects and specimens. Weight Drifting opens 7 October and runs through 11 November.
The term ‘weight’ bears a specific meaning in the world of artificial intelligence (AI), referring to the importance given to an input and its correlated influence on the output – in essence, the basis on which AI builds its identification and judgment. Under a social context, ‘weight’ can be used to describe the extent of power or authority that certain individuals or parties may have over others and the decision-making process at-large. These invisible systems, though similar in logic and operation, seemingly exist in parallel in two different worlds, but Zhong Wei asks: “What about the weight between man and technology?”
Automation and its increasingly prominent role in the development of social ecology has become plain to see as it inserts itself into almost every aspect of life. However, to what event does humanity still retain significance in the advancement of technology? Surrounded by the anarchic pandemonium that Zhong Wei portrays, the answer might perhaps be “little to none.” From his large-scale artworks up to 3.5 meters in length to his array of smaller sized canvases, Zhong Wei’s maximalist, visceral, and unapologetic visual language speaks to unbated intensity at which technology operates. Layering a multitude of digital textures and motifs, his painted imagery resembles living and growing amorphous creatures that walk among a disorienting and pixelated world. Dwarfed afront his artworks, the experience is as if visiting a science museum of unnatural history, with exhibits evocative of both awe and anxiety.
Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road