New Technologies

We have been working very hard these past few months to put together an exciting and challenging issue of Contemporary Lynx, and this issue is our response to the presence of technology, the advent of technology, in all our lives. For the children born in this century — the internet, laptops, and mobiles are like air — they are ubiquitous and it would be hard to imagine a world without them; and not just for them, but for everyone who has ever used technology to make their lives easier.

Posthumanism, technology, and a glimpse of the future.

What does this mean, though? What does this mean for art and for creativity? Are we heading towards a future where creative output is generated by artificial intelligence? Or a set of algorithms? How do practices like 3D printing impact and change our experience of art? What will define a work of art in the future, and what is there to look forward to?

This issue explores the intersection of some of the most complex themes of our times, and among other things, our writers and artists investigate the impact of technology on the portrayal and understanding of the female body in Demystifying the Female Body (pp. 84), pin down the rapidly evolving culture of art collecting through the rise of new media in The Collectors on the Frontlines of the Extraordinary (pp.126), and travel from 19th century London to the lonely expanses of the Ural mountains in Mapping the Future (pp. 88).

From philosophical implications and considerations of what it means to be human, to the artists who practice their craft on the edge of new technology, and looming behind it all, the quest for the ultimate architectural dream — the smart city; we have collected for you a varied, astonishing palette that reveals a new frontier, and the future of art.