Creatures of Habit

The newest works of the collaborative artistic duo Pakui Hardware formed by Neringa Černiauskaite (1984) and Ugnius Gelguda (1977) are featured in the exhibition. Since 2014 Pakui Hardware has intensively worked on tracing Capital through bodies and materials by highlighting friction between the velocity of technological and scientific development and the matter that resists and twists this development. Moreover Pakui Hardware has been rapidly developing a unique, signature artistic language which is based on the combination of industrial and ephemeral installative elements with fragile synthetic sculpture.

Pakui Hardware’s exhibition resonates in the context of visions on automated societies of the future. This phantasy plays with the image of humans immersed in leisure and devoting themselves to spiritual and cultural augmentation, the cult of creativity and fitness. While this privileged state might be only accessible for parts of the post-working class, it’s not the human which is in focus here.

The exhibition turns its lens towards the non-organic workers. Towards these seemingly industrial, automated and organic hybrids, whose metallic bodies are wrapped in protective uniforms, shielding away from hazardous environment. These figures, dressed in clothing made of heavy-duty waterproof fabrics, silicone and zippers, merge machine-human features and gestures into a synthetic whole, making them specimens of a yet unknown transitory species.

The name Pakui Hardware refers to Pakui – special attendant of Hawaiian Goddess, who could circle Oahu island six times in a day. Thus Pakui Hardware is also obsessed with speed and in investigation of high-speed cultural encounters. The duo’s work span around the complex relationship of materiality, technology , economy, and how technology shapes economy and physical reality, including the human body.