Chapter VIII: Hallucinations brings together the distinct yet convergent practices of artist Trevor Paglen and the collective Troika, interrogating how technologies shape perception, legibility, and the construction of reality. Both Paglen and Troika examine how technology configures the ways we see and understand the world, though they approach this question from opposite directions: Paglen reveals infrastructures designed to remain invisible, while Troika investigates systems created to make the world appear more ordered and coherent than it truly is. In dialogue, their works open a space to question where perception ends and where technological design begins.

Across four galleries, Hallucinations traces a shared fascination with the ways humans, machines, and environments perceive, transform, and “dream” one another. The exhibition moves between data-driven vision systems, forests interwoven with electronics, and installations that evoke vegetal intelligences, placing technological, natural, and perceptual structures into conversation.

Paglen and Troika illuminate hidden architectures—algorithmic, biological, historical, and imagined—that organize the world we inhabit, often without our awareness. Their works chart shifting forms of life and perception, revealing how the organic and the artificial continually influence and reshape one another.

In Anima Atman, Troika experiments with the premise that plants possess their own intelligence and consciousness. A group of thistles sprouts from a landscape of gleaming silicon rocks, moving almost imperceptibly, as if animated by a supernatural energy. This ambiguous vitality, situated between the real and the imagined, turns the installation into a threshold where the familiar becomes strange. In Irma Watched Over by Machines, the impassive gaze of a camera documents the destruction caused by Hurricane Irma in 2017, confronting the natural force of catastrophe with the indifferent logic of the machine. Together, these works raise questions about non-human sensitivity, causality, and the act of observation.

In dialogue, Trevor Paglen’s works amplify these tensions by tracing the political, material, and perceptual infrastructures that allow humans and machines to learn how to see. In Faces of ImageNet, Paglen makes visible the real harms that machine-learning systems can perpetuate. In Bloom, he presents a field of algorithmically generated flowers—images created not from observation, but through artificial vision systems trained to recognize and distort botanical forms—while in Clouds, he transforms the sky into a surveilled territory, where even clouds are classified through the languages of computational control.

“The story told in the exhibition is meant to mirror the story of AI over the last 20 years or so. First, it was “let’s build the internet,” then it’s been “oh cool let’s train the internet how to see us” (surveillance, etc). Nowadays, it’s been “let’s build AI systems that make images, and that pretend to be humans,” and now everyone’s brains are broken and nothing is real anymore.” — Trevor Paglen

This exhibition invites us to sense the world in a new way: as a living network of reflections and correspondences, where every gaze, signal, and root mirrors another way of being. In this space, perception become shared ground—human and more-than-human, technological and ecological—opening the possibility of understanding our relationships in deeper, more resonant ways.

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September 1, 2024 - March 1, 2025
Langen Foundation, Neuss, Germany.

Curated by Dehlia Hannah and Nadim Samman.

In Pink Noise, Troika delves into the intricate relationships between sensory perception, the natural environment, and technology. OMR is proud to support this initiative, which explores how the convergence of the human and the technological is redefining our understanding of the world during a time of climate crisis and social transformation.

The exhibition's title, Pink Noise, refers to an acoustic phenomenon that encompasses all audible frequencies, echoing patterns found in natural systems like the murmur of waterfalls or the heartbeat. Troika leverages this concept to investigate how our perception of nature is shaped by digital media, and how emerging technologies both enhance and constrain our interpretation of the environment.

The show features works ranging from artificial intelligence and landscape design to oil painting and interactive sculptures, challenging traditional distinctions between the natural and the artificial, the human and the technological. These pieces invite contemplation on the impact of technology on our perception of the world.

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With the immersive spatial installation ‘Terminal Beach,’ designed specifically for MAK, the London-based artist collective Troika (Eva Rucki, Conny Freyer, and Sebastien Noel) unveils a dystopian landscape at the edge of time, portraying the end of natural life on our planet and the intersection of the virtual and material worlds.

The artists will explore the multi-layered forms of non-human intelligence within an immersive site-specific installation.

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Troika’s ‘Terminal Beach’ is an animated film portraying a futuristic end-time scenario where an ape-like creature fells what is believed to be the last tree on Earth. In this scene, the robot concludes what humanity initiated long ago – the progressive destruction of our planet.With this first solo exhibition in Austria, Troika focuses on the complex forms of non-human intelligence and raises questions regarding the adaptation of living beings to climate change as well as the digital afterlife of human myths, culture, and history.

Troika participates in the exhibition “Poetics of Encryption” at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, Germany with two works: “In a forest of red, green and blue - Aktaion” and “I Woke up to Find Myself Scattered Across Continents - Hermes.”

This extensive group exhibition builds upon the recent book bytitled “Poetics of Encryption: Art and the Technocene.” It surveys an imaginative landscape marked by Black Sites, Black Boxes, and Black Holes—terms that indicate how technical systems capture users, how they work in stealth, and how they distort cultural space-time. Spanning analogue and digital media, the exhibition features both historic and newly commissioned works by more than 40 international artists.

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February 17th - May 26th, 2024