Through The Lens of Machines: Troika at Langen Foundation
An artist trio founded in 2003 is invested in science and technology and focuses on the materials of "progress".
I walk through a narrow white corridor. Pixelated paintings hang from the ceiling and on the walls. Green is dominant. Troika uses real CCTV footage here, adapting screen color to human perception. Squinting my eyes, I can make out shapes resembling forests. In some works, red devours the greens, swooshing over the painting surface. This is what the LA wildfires must look like right now. That must come in handy for this show, I think cynically. But these catastrophic depictions don’t trigger anything in me. I observe my own indifference.
Have you ever heard of the psychological term “compassion fade”? I came across it through @depthsofwikipedia. Compassion fade describes increasing indifference towards the increasing need for help. The more horrible stuff you see, the less you care. Susan Sontag, too, referred to this idea in her iconic book Regarding the Pain of Others (2003). And so Troika surrenders these images to their viewers, aware that they might not care.
I walk on and hear a sound—a repetitive dull bang. As I approach the end of the corridor, I turn around and see a big screen: Terminal Beach (2020). The displayed video makes me take on a strange POV: I’m swirling in circles on something furry cutting down a tree with an axe. I see a lake and hills in the distance. The POV switches. From a safe distance, I see the black furry robot arm frantically cutting down that same tree. Why does it do this? It looks so tired. It reminded me of Pierre Huyghe’s (Baby Boomer, French) Camata (2024): A POV-switching video with a robotic arm in a similarly alien post-apocalyptic landscape. I was quick to think they copied him but Troika actually did it first…
New room. The colors red, green, and blue continue to dominate the exhibition. Anima Atman (2024): An elongated pile of rocks expands on the floor. Thistles nestle in between. They vibrate as if pushed by non-existent wind. But they move in slow motion. Are they moving in a different dimension or is it me? The rapidly switching light above removes any fluid perception and gives me flickering frames instead. The visual experience was confusing, so unadapted to the human standard. I was fascinated.
Metal cutouts lean against the windows. Skies with pretty cloud hues and sunsets are printed on those surfaces. The shapes follow the absent landscapes. Some are turned to face the windows. How do you even get a limitless view into such a rigid form? Look at this beautiful view. Don’t worry about what’s going on underneath…
One concrete wall in the descending hallway displays Evolutionary Composite (2024). Sharpened flit stones are arranged in the middle of round surfaces with silicon wafer. The pieces trace back the evolution of technology from flint hand axes to contemporary computer technology. The corresponding text explains how both share the same word history: “Named after its crystalline ancestor silex, an early term for flint or ‘hard stone’, silicon is the key element in semiconductors.”
While this connection is hardly debatable, the suggestion of Troika’s piece is. It reproduces a patriarchal idea of technology, one where weapons were the first “mass-produced” inventions of humankind and where the blood-thirsty tech billionaires of this world control the resources of today. Do you think what you’re saying goes anywhere beyond what Agnes Denes (Silent Generation, Hungarian) already did with
Introspection II—Machines, Tools & Weapons (1969–1972)? Three years after Agnes’s work, Elizabeth Fisher went on to publish her book Women’s Creation: Sexual Evolution and the Shaping of Society (1975). In the chapter The Carrier Bag Theory of Evolution, Elizabeth argues that an increasing number of scientists believe that vessels were the first human inventions, not weapons. This theory taken up by science-fiction writer Ursula K Le Guin in 1986 was foundational for Cecilia Alemani’s Venice Biennale 2022. So, yeah, Idk how up-to-date that rock-computer timeline is…
Speaking of rocks and bulky stuff: Dark Matter (2014) is a large black geometric sculpture that hangs from the ceiling and takes on different shapes depending on your perspective. The covering material, black flock, is supposed to absorb light… But Idk, it does a horrible job. I’m sorry to be the vibe killer here, but that’s literally Anish Kapoor (Baby Boomer British-Indian) from Temu. He started working with Vantablack the very same year and let me tell you: there ain’t no light no nothing.
I walk on. Huge hall, dark water basin, orange light. I feel like this must have already been here during the Julian Charrière (Millennial, Swiss) show although it wasn’t. In the water—white lacquered 3D-printed fragmented and weirdly reassembled creatures. Kind of like in that one Family Guy meme. The exhibition booklet offers this huge paragraph on how GRENZGÄNGER (2024) makes use of mythical threshold figures from museum archives, reassembling them into neW CrEaTuReS iNtErroGaTInG cuLtURAl MEMorY…sorry, I zoned out while thinking how these figures look exactly what I imagine Meissen porcelain would commission for a futuristic AI anniversary-collection.
One fragmented piece intrigued me, though. Back upstairs in a light-flooded part of the building, I see Buttercup (Canticle of the Creatures) (2024): A sculpture and elevation made of Carrara marble. Hands appear out of nowhere. I see a bull, and ropes, and a lion (I believe). I was there with a friend, she said it looks like if you asked an AI to put a whole story into one sculpture. I agreed. Although the exhibition booklet briefly states here that AI is developing rapidly and changing our world (no shit, thanks for informing me), it doesn’t explain whether AI was used for this rendering of three real art historical objects into one.
Compared to other artists, I feel like Troika is the same text but different font. The looks are impressive, but is anything conveyed truly new? Is the limitation of resources a surprise? Is progress being an ambiguous concept a thought coming outta nowhere? Some works like the one with the thistles or the CCTV footage paintings opened up a new visual experience. This is what I had hoped to get from an exhibition approaching a technological gaze. But that ended up being the exception. In comparison: I didn’t even like that Pierre Huyghe exhibition in Venice last year that much, but respect where respect is due: That whole show in absolute darkness was an attempt to adapt human vision to a non-human-centered world, not the other way around. Here, I didn’t feel like I was brought out of my comfort zone. Quite the opposite. During golden hour, even dystopia looks good.
Troika: Pink Noise, on view through March 16, 2025, at Langen Foundation, Neuss.
Langen Foundation
Raketenstation Hombroich 1
41472 Neuss
Website
Instagram: @langenfoundation @troika_london
I hope my German readers all voted today and that you’re doing okay with the elections. Everybody stay mentally and physically sane!
See you soon!!!
Jennifer
The Gen Z Art Critic