British artist Lisa Barnard presents her first major project in four years at C/O Berlin and takes visitors on a visual journey through California. The starting point is the Salton Sea, once a military test site, now surrounded by economic and technological desires — such as the planned lithium mining. Barnard shows the ecological exhaustion of a once flourishing region and links this with the military and historical layers of the location. Using photographs, video installations, archive material, alternative printing techniques and AI-supported image analyses, a fragmented, multi-layered narrative emerges that critically examines technological progress and the resources on which it is based.
The central question is how the interaction between humans, animals and machines changes our perception of the world: Barnard examines, among other things, technological strategies for real-time object recognition — such as the AI programme “You Only Look Once” (YOLO) — and links these to the echolocation of bats. Although such systems are capturing our world ever more precisely, machine learning is denied a real experience. Barnard’s exhibition thus creates an awareness of the subtle differences, but also the parallels in dealing with complexity and autonomy. Particularly in view of the pressing climate crisis, it asks how technology can be designed not only efficiently, but also sensitively and responsibly.
