For our last exhibition of the Paradise year, we focus on Bedevilment, in collaboration with our friends at Curious Matter, who will install an exhibit within the exhibit entitled The Naming of the Animals.

Myth says that naming the animals is an obligation assigned to humankind at the creation and it is one that has never ceased to demand attention: the task of naming, ordering, cataloging, dividing, pairing, discerning, describing, speaking…. Indeed, Paradise itself, where naming first began, was a place divided and separated, which is why its beatific presence bedevils us. As the exhibitions at Proteus Gowanus and Curious Matter attest, these paradisiacal topics are vexing.

We are bedeviled by threatened harmony, endless desiring,  dangerous magic and unhinged innocence, all on view in the works of 19  artists, writers , designers and collectives. Also in store is the Spring line-up of evening events with musicians, scholars, priests, dancers, filmmakers, historians and writers.

The exhibit at Proteus opens this Saturday and will run through July 16. The show at Curious Matter opened on April 3 and closes May 15. For details on Naming the Animals and directions to Curious Matter, click here.

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In addition, we are pleased to host this spring two Paradise projects-in-residence. In the work of Madhu Kaza’s Here Is Where We Meet and Clarinda Mac Lowe’s Cyborg Nation, we examine the relationship between intimacy and service, domestic ritual and public space, and between our human selves and the smart machines which serve and guide us.

Cyborg Nation extends our recent inquiries into future utopias,  offering Teknotherapy for all who need help coping with their increasing dependence upon electronic gadgets. Have you fully accepted your cyborg nature? With Teknotherapy, a Cyborg interlocutor (or “teknotherapist”) leads group and individual sessions during April and May for those of us grappling with our machinic selves, helping us to come to terms with our relationships with our electronic extensions. For more details or to make an appointment, click here.

For our second project, Here is Where We Meet, Madhu Kaza will travel to individual participant’s homes by appointment to read them to sleep at bedtime. Here is Where We Meet is part of the artist’s ongoing Hospitality series, projects that examine social conventions, rituals of domestic and daily life, relations between strangers, hosts and guests, and boundaries of public and intimate space. Here is Where We Meet is particularly concerned with the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep, the drift from the world of stories to the world of dreams, and a re-engagement of the pleasure of voice in our experience of texts. More details will be available soon.

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What Happened

We all have a relationship with at least one special machine, and many of us may qualify as cyborgs. Do you need help accepting your cyborg nature? How are your relationships with your machines? Have you considered therapy? In Teknotherapy, a Cyborg interlocutor (or “teknotherapist”) leads group and individual sessions for those of us grappling with our machinic selves, helping us come to terms with our relationships to our electronic extensions.

Teknotherapists: Onome Ekeh and Clarinda Mac Low.

You may drop in during designated hours or make an appointment now at email hidden; JavaScript is required. You can also participate by sending your email questions or photos to email hidden; JavaScript is required.

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What kind of issues arise in Teknotherapy?

“My __________ is jealous of my other relationships.”

“I have been with my _________________ for five years and our relationship has been deteriorating. I think it’s time to move on, but it’s hard to imagine how to adjust to life without it.”

“I am unable to resist using my __________ all the time, and it is always available. “

“I have too many machines and I have trouble finding time for myself.”

“My ___________________ doesn’t understand me, and we have trouble communicating.”

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Visit Cyborg Nation online for more information. Cyborg Nation is a portable performance installation based in a self-contained performance environment (or SCoPE); miniature technologies combined to create a tiny media extravaganza. It is a philosophical inquiry and investigation of intimacy in a world of remote communication; a participatory performance experiment where one-to-one conversation is a public display.

Cyborg Nation is created by Clarinda Mac Low and Walter Polkosnik, with SCoPE design by Stacy Scibelli. Presented in partnership with Proteus Gowanus and The Fixer’s Collective.