“A Sea of Data,” German media artist Hito Steyerl’s first solo show in Asia, opens at Seoul’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA). Named after an e-flux essay by the artist, the exhibition includes 23 works, spanning 1990-2000s video art through her more recent (often iconic) installations. It also premieres a new commission: Animal Spirits (2022, image) is a sensor-driven animation of post-pandemic (human) conditions—from remote culture to decentralization.

As part of her eponymous solo exhibition, American software artist Lauren Lee McCarthy performs a new iteration of her 2020 COVID response piece I Heard Talking Is Dangerous at EIGEN+ART Lab, Berlin. Whereas the original performance had McCarthy trigger text-to-speech monologues from her phone, Proceed At Your Own Risk invited the gallery audience to use the same technology (via a custom web app) to talk back.

“SKIN DEEP,” a Jonas Blume solo show, opens at Scope BLN in Berlin. Curated by Tina Sauerlaender, the exhibition lives up to its name, presenting works by the American artist exploring the “use of skin as medium to reflect on the relationship between reality and image world.” Included is motorized torso Partially True (2022) and creepy diptych Yes. (Double David) (2022, image). Collectively the works present the artist’s body “in an estranged and uncanny haptic beyond resemblance.”

Putting ecology-focused works by the Dutch and British artists in conversation, “Dialogue: James Bridle and Jonas Staal“ opens at Berlin’s NOME gallery. Stall’s “Comrades in Deep Future“ marshals a coalition of “extinct plants, neo-constructivist ammonites, and insurgent octopi“ into “a popular front of earth workers,“ while Bridle’s “Signs of Life,“ showcases a series of sustainable design ‘tributes’ (image: Windmill 03 (for Walter Segal), 2022).

Are the aesthetics of an immersive installation intellectual property? According to recently surfaced Los Angeles court documents the answer to that question is maybe. Spurned by similarities between a pair of their works and installations at the Museum of Dream Space (MODS) in Beverly Hills, teamLab are suing for copyright infringement. The prolific Japanese studio claims motifs from “Transcending Boundaries” (2017) and “Crystal” (2015), have been copied by exhibition designers at the American venue. The case may set an interesting legal precedent, as “streams of light and water cascading down the wall onto the ground” is not exactly ingenious—but immersive installations are big business now. Either a summary judgement will be issued in a few weeks, or the case heads to trial this summer.

“Simulating Gestures,” a show in which Jessica Field questions the visibility of the artist’s hand in digital art, opens at Toronto’s Pari Nadimi Gallery. Field’s explorations of emergence are demonstrated here, by works including a simulation pitting artificial agents against one another (to make aesthetic decisions), and a recent drawing series where AI personas sketch “emotionally infused ideas to communicate” (image: Shame is only heavy when it hurts, 2021).

The 59th edition of the Venice Biennale opens. Some highlights: central exhibition “The Milk of Dreams” includes early computer art by Vera Molnar; Iceland’s pavilion, for which Sigurður Guðjónsson zooms into infinitesimal metal dust; Malta’s pavilion, where Arcangelo Sassolino reimagines a Caravaggio scene in dripping molten steel (image: Diplomazija Astuta, 2022); and Uzbekistan’s pavilion, which honours the 8th-century polymath Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi.

Showing the “divergent realities generated by the use of fossil fuels” worldwide, “Fossil Experience” opens at Berlin’s Prater Galerie. Participating artists include Marjolijn Dijkman, Monira Al Qadiri, and Rachel O’Reilly. Global North and South are represented, with Kat Austen’s This Land is Not Mine (2020-) chronicling waning coal production in Western Europe, and Ayọ̀ Akínwándé’s Ogoni Cleanup (image, 2020) resuscitating a Big Oil-ravaged Niger Delta river.

Rick Silva’s solo exhibition “PEAKING” opens at Oregon Contemporary, Portland, centering on the Brazilian-American artist’s newest 3D animation. In the piece, myriad variations of a floating mountain peak interact with fluctuating graph lines, echoing the geologic deep-time of the region. “As the frequency of the formations escalate, so does the sentiment of ‘peaking,’ in its sublime quantifications, ecstasies, and precipices,” curator Ashley Stull Meyers writes.

“Emo Gym,” a show inviting artists to “confront, dissect, and possibly embrace the vulnerability of our times,” opens at Hong Kong’s Tai Kwun Contemporary. Participating artists include Chloë Cheuk, Yim Sui Fong, and Eason Tsang ka wai contributing installations and video works. Of note: recent RCA grad Michele Chu‘s inti-gym (2021, image), a cozy tunnel that offers enclosure and respite for ‘intimacy fitness,’ an affective counterpoint to the physical regime of traditional gyms.