Emmanuel Van der Auwera

Emmanuel Van der Auwera (BE, 1982) is a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary artist whose works blend cinema, sculpture, and digital tech­nolo­gies. Through his films, ​"VideoSculp­tures", and instal­la­tions, he strives to create images that tell stories and that shape our perception of the world. His works notably focus on post-truth mechanisms and trans­for­ma­tions within our rela­tion­ships with reality in an era of con­tem­po­rary tech­nolo­gies and artificial intelligence.

Dubbed Juggernaut, the exhibition borrows its title from the Sanskrit word Jagannātha, meaning ​"Lord of the Universe", which is one of the names given to Krishna in his form as Master of the World. Having become a metaphor in the West for an unstoppable, destructive force, the term is often used by Alexander C. Karp, CEO of Palantir Tech­nolo­gies – an American software company spe­cial­is­ing in processing large amounts of data and notably active in the fields of defence, intel­li­gence, and AI – to qualify the power that his company is quickly accu­mu­lat­ing. This reference echoes one of the exhibition's central questions: how can tales of tech­no­log­i­cal prowess, progress, and freedom lead to the emergence of new forms of power?

This question rever­ber­ates within the walls of the BPS22. Housed in a former industrial-style building in Charleroi, the museum offers a unique perspective on the transition from a traditional factory to today's globalised digital infra­struc­ture. Here, this historical continuity becomes a snapshot of our present: a ​"world-factory" where raw materials, data, capitals, and images collide, and within which we have all become operators in one way or another. As click-workers, using and producing data as we click, click, click along, we participate in and perpetuate the operations of this immense infrastructure.

The journey through the exhibition hinges around four main artworks, which lead into one another much like the steps of a production process. Labour, extrac­tivism, industry, technology, the rise of accel­er­a­tionist ideologies, and global conflicts form the canvas of a deeply troubled period of time. Emmanuel Van der Auwera unites these realities with the images, words, and thoughts that help to shape them. He offers a diagnosis of the present and a speculative mapping of the futures towards which the current tech­no­log­i­cal revolution could lead us.

With Juggernaut, Emmanuel Van der Auwera treads a path where each piece represents a different moment on the same assembly line. From its materials and crafts­man­ship to its imagery and ideologies, the exhibition ponders the forces that orchestrate our modern world and the stories that give them meaning.