Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Issue 1 | Page 75

“materiality” of the digital and an opportunity to engage with the interplays
and tensions between the virtual and the physical (Figure �).
In her review of the Autopoiesis 2.0 exhibition, McAuliffe (����) argued that
translating the digital nature of the project into analog content (canvases,
printed photographs, films on separate screens, etc.) within the exhibition
space could have potentially reinstated the very territorial limitations of
official UAE cultural institutions that Autopoiesis 2.0 attempted to challenge.
McAuliffe goes on to suggest that in showcasing artworks by a variety of
UAE residents and visitors through the open topology of digital networks,
“Autopoiesis 2.0 offers counternarratives not only to the dominant cultural
narrative supported by UAE institutions, but also to the very conceptual
and spatial framework through which they offer these narratives” (ibid.).
The digital has thus allowed Autopoiesis to reimagine the cultural space and
heritage of the UAE and provide a more inclusive platform for its multiethnic
and multi-national contemporary population.
The exhibition used both audio and visual elements (photographic and film
material) to create an immersive ambiance, which stimulated free thinking
and interpretation, and incited visitors’ assimilation into the cultural milieu
of the UAE as represented by the exhibited material. This was further
encouraged by the minimal information provided to visitors about the
various artworks. Apart from supplying an informative leaflet about the
contributions featured in the exhibition, visitors were left to freely bring their
own interpretations, meanings, and narratives to these artworks reinforcing
the “autopoetic” nature of the exhibition and the project as a whole.
The spatial arrangement of the exhibition space consisted of two screens
that faced each other and showed photographic artworks in the format of
slide-shows, which moved at different paces. This intended to provide the
viewer with the possibility to interact simultaneously with images linked to
distinct themes and narratives. A third screen, facing the entrance to the
exhibition, was used to project the film contributions (Figure �).
The various sounds emanating from these films created an ambient
background noise, puncturing the stillness and blank interior of the
exhibition space. The interactions between image and sound offered a
unique audio-visual environment while maintaining an empty space, which
evoked at once a sense of place (the UAE) as well as placeless-ness through
the cacophony of sounds and mosaic of images. As succinctly described by
McAuliffe (����), “[p]rojecting films not only deterritorialized the artwork
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