Under the Viral Shadow
· exhibition
ArchaeaBot was shown in Under the Viral Shadow at Art Laboratory Berlin, an exhibition examining biological, cybernetic, and social networks in the age of technoscience and infection.
ArchaeaBot was included in Under the Viral Shadow: Networks in the Age of Technoscience and Infection at Art Laboratory Berlin, where the exhibition ran from 28 August to 10 October 2021.
The exhibition examined the many meanings of the virus across life science, cybernetics, and network culture, bringing together artists whose work addressed biotechnology, machine systems, artificial intelligence, and social contagion. In that setting, ArchaeaBot sat alongside works by Anna Dumitriu, Benjamin Bacon, Gene Kogan, Sarah Grant, and Vivian Xu, contributing a speculative image of post-climate-change survival grounded in archaea research, robotics, and machine learning.
That context sharpened what the work is doing. Rather than presenting future life as isolated science fiction, ArchaeaBot became part of a wider exhibition about infection, adaptation, and the entanglement of biological and technical systems. The Berlin presentation made clear how closely May’s practice connects ecological change, scientific thought, and digital mediation, using speculative forms to ask what kinds of life, memory, and intelligence might persist under damaged conditions.