Artists Rebecca Allen, Loucia Carlier, Giulia Cenci, Cécile B. Evans, Amandine Guruceaga, Camille Henrot, Oliver Laric, Nefeli Papadimouli, Panos Profitis, Hugo Servanin, Yan Tomaszewski, Zhang Yunyao
Date 28.06.2025 - 14.09.2025
Curator Laurène Maréchal and Laetitia de Chocqueuse, in collaboration with Emma Legrand, Archipel Art Contemporain
Venue Artocène, Contemporary art biennial, Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc, France
Photography Julien Gremaud
Augmented Bodies offers a reflection on how organisms evolve or adapt to their environment, whether through natural processes (evolutionary biology) or via science and technology.
Since its beginnings, humankind has enhanced its capabilities through tools. The mechanical tool was followed by the digital tool, virtually extending or amplifying human faculties. The recent emergence of connected tools and artificial intelligence marks a new era, fundamentally altering how humans relate to their environment.
Exploring the relationship between bodies and landscape, Augmented Bodies takes the Alpine landscape and the practice of mountaineering as the starting point for its curatorial approach. The Mont Blanc Massif, an extreme natural environment, has been transformed first by technology (sporting equipment, cable cars, climate change), and more recently by digital tools (GPS, data…).
It can be seen as emblematic of the emergence of new relationships with the body. Caught amid these fast and radical changes, other species also adapt—often through hybridization.
The animal and plant kingdoms become a repertoire of evolutionary scenarios, offering inspiration for homo sapiens. Will the development of human technique and technology require a return to nature and the living world? Might humans be called upon to integrate the long rhythms of the landscape into their own bodies?
