Nov 26, 2024
Dániel Szalai presents »Unleash Your Herd’s Potential« at WUNDERKAMMER
Unleash Your Herd's Potential, Cow 6241 Laying, 2021, Dániel Szalai
Dániel Szalai presents Unleash Your Herd’s Potential at WUNDERKAMMER – NATURALIA I ARTIFICIALIA, starting November 29, 2024 at 7 pm
Dániel Szalai’s project, Unleash Your Herd’s Potential, began with the announcement of the development of a facial recognition program for cattle. It explores precision livestock farming, surveillance, exploitation, and our relationship with nature and technology.
Modern dairy farms, shaped by computer vision, AI, and robotics, function as a digital panopticon. Cows are continuously monitored and can move freely but remain within a closed system designed to maximize and quantify their exploitation. Each cow is reduced to a measurable entity within a technological infrastructure that tracks every aspect of its existence.
The project translates cows and their environment into the virtual realm using photogrammetry, a 3D scanning technique. The resulting »information clouds« give the images a painterly aesthetic, reflecting a romanticized, data-driven landscape where animals and technology increasingly converge.
The work is complemented by sculptural salt licks, which cows shape as they consume them for nutritional supplements. These organic, anomalous forms symbolize resistance against the reduction of living beings to mere parameters in an economic system.
Dániel Szalai (born 1991) is a Hungarian photographer and visual artist whose work explores the relationships between humans and animals, reflecting on sociopolitical and ecological issues. After earning a degree in Art and Design Theory in 2012, Szalai studied Photography from 2017 to 2019 at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Since 2021, he has been a PhD candidate in Multimedia Art at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design.
Unleash Your Herd’s Potential was made possible with the support of the Anni and Heinrich Sussmann Foundation and the Pécsi József Photography Grant from the Hungarian Ministry of Human Resources, as part of Szalai’s doctoral research at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design.
Generously supported by Rosspartner Werbetechnik, Ritter Sport, GEISTUNDGELD e.V., SV SparkassenVersicherung, Wüstenrot Stiftung, and the Stuttgart Cultural Office.
Opening: November 29, 2024, 7 PM
Exhibition Duration: Until February 27, 2025
Opening Hours: 24/7
Address: Badstraße 32, 70372 Stuttgart
Info: Free admission, wheelchair accessible.
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