Shanghai 'The Three-Body Problem' Contemporary Art Exhibition: Prelude - The First Glimpse of Civilization

Starting from ‘The Three-Body Problem’, 15 groups of global artists including Xu Bing, Liu Chuang, Liu Xin, Chen Zhe, Wang Ninghui, and Rohini Devasher have brought more than 15 ‘research-oriented’ artworks based on the origin of ‘The Three-Body Problem’ through comprehensive research methods such as scientific institution residency. To what extent can we truly understand the truth of the universe we are in? Different historical periods of scientific observations have deduced different physical laws. If human scientific research is really interfered with by ‘Sophons’, would physics still exist? This exhibition will allow everyone to feel the state of guessing and imagining before the real answers are revealed.

‘The First Glimpse of Civilization’ aims to explore how ‘The Three-Body Problem’, as a science fiction work, cultural symbol, and a platform linking science and imagination, can give rise to creative practices that resonate and intersect with it. The exhibition is not a scene restoration, visual translation, or concept restatement of the original ‘The Three-Body Problem’, but rather takes the story of ‘The Three-Body Problem’ as a starting point and open question to discuss urgent and enlightening issues related to current technological development and scientific research.

The exhibition invites the audience to freely travel between two exhibition areas representing Earth and extraterrestrial civilizations, to speculate on ‘other-than-us’ intelligence or life forms. There are no strict boundaries between the three spaces, just as our imagination of alien planets is always ‘earth-like but not quite’, and only by retaining the parts similar to Earth can science fiction imagination have profound real significance. If we take ‘the first glimpse’ as a thought experiment, a stone thrown into the silent lake of the universe, perhaps in our ‘Earth’s past’, it will stir up many possibilities.

The exhibition is open from November 9th to February 8th.