Hayal Pozanti’s first solo exhibition in Brussels continues to be inspired by her longterm interest in cyborg anthropology, a framework for understanding the effects of technology on humans and culture. Titled Corpus, the show is based on research related to the merging of human bodies with machines via implanted electronic devices. Through the works in this exhibition, Pozanti encourages the viewer to consider the relevance of physical bodies in a posthuman future where we have reached technological singularity, a hypothetical event in which artificial intelligence would be capable of recursive selfimprovement. In such a future, what would be the role of embodied cognition and embodied emotion? Could a brain in a box ever be the same as a mind in a body? If not, how do we imagine the limits of our symbiosis with machines? By positing the body as a focal point of the exhibition, Pozanti not only contemplates these questions but also encourages us to consider the commonalities of our species. In an increasingly hostile and divided global climate, she seizes an opportune moment to ask ‘What is it that makes us human?”

Visually, Pozanti's work relies on an invented alphabet of 31 shapes, which she has named 'Instant Paradise'. This lexicon is source material for all her paintings, sculptures, animations and sound pieces. Each shape in Instant Paradise has been assigned a number and a letter from the English alphabet, allowing her to literally 'translate' data through a personalized encryption system. She has created a typeface from her
characters, as well as phonemes that she resources for her animations and her sound pieces, respectively. Pozanti's hermetic visual language aims to intercept and clog visual feeds. By creating compositions through a wholly invented shape generating system, she refuses to mirror the feed and thus decelerates information flows. Her decision to employ a mind to hand method for creating her shapes, as well as her insistence on painting, stems from a desire to bring her body back into the creative process. In doing so, she disengages a part of her creative process from the premeditated constructs of digital programs and machines.

Corpus is installed in the main gallery of Levy Delval and features three paintings, two wall murals, two CSS animations and a sound piece. The paintings and wall murals are based on current numbers of cyborgs within the human population while the animations are based on a chat session Pozanti had with Cleverbot, a web application that uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to have conversations with humans. The sound
piece is a recording of her reading this same conversation in Instant Paradise, interlaced with emotive sighs and other non verbal vocal communication cues.

Hayal Pozanti - Corpus
Levy Delval, April 19 - May 28
www.levydelval.com

Contribution by Domenico de Chirico.