Designing Desire at FACT
Sara Jaspan, Exhibitions Editor
Whatever your attitude towards the ever-evolving possibilities of AI (excited, terrified, mind-boggled, uninterested), one thing the field has always provided is a fascinating perspective on the way humans think about themselves. FACT’s latest pop-up exhibition, Designing Desire, takes another area of technology – the future of 3D printing – as a source of new insight into how we’ve been taught to think about our bodies, identities, gender and biological capabilities.
Designing Desire features the work of three artists, Morehshin Allahyari, Joey Holder and Kuang-Yi Ku, whose practices sit at the intersection between visual art, technology, scientific exploration and political activism (Ku is also a professional dentist). Collectively they explore how new directions in technological, biological, political and sexual advancement provided by 3D printing are enabling humans to overcome the limits and regulations imposed by the so-called ‘real’ world. And use speculative design – a tool for creating ideas and imagined futures as much as ‘things’ – to and encourage visitors to imagine endless possibilities for our future and present selves.
