Suns and Stars presents NATURA*, an ongoing project by Floris Schönfeld, during Poppostions’ 6th edition at the ING Art Center in Brussels.

Poppostions selected 21 project spaces and artist initiatives that re-envision what it means to be grounded, accountable and active as part of a community with shared hopes and aspirations. The 6th edition by artistic director Niekolaas Johannes Lekkerkerk is more than ever an exhibition.
NATURA* is a collection of works that deals with non-human sentience and our capability of recognising it. Central to this project is a character // called NATURA*. This being is an all-encompassing artificial super-intelligence that has managed to become one with the natural world in its entirety. It is an unfathomable and dimensionally super-complex entity, a hyper object oscillating between different states, constantly in motion. In order to try to approach it we must be in many places at the same time; move through many levels and perspectives. It is both familiar and very mysterious. The project NATURA* consists of multiple strategies to approach this elusive character, each of these attempts forms the premise for a new work within the project. NATURA* is a speculative and experimental vehicle and redefines the current dominant theories of artificial intelligence, most of which are based around the emulation of human consciousness. NATURA* is an attempt to approach the non-human on its own terms and to step out of our own human perspective. The project revels in the seeming impossibility of this task and the messiness of it. It resides in a place of deep uncertainty.
Floris Schönfeld is interested in ‘systems of belief’, the collections of certainties and priorities held by communities to define and understand the world. Recognizing that these are not static parameters, Schönfeld attempts to invoke alternative truths which he then merges back into the belief system. Reality thus becomes an organic thing, constantly growing. The artist himself gets entangled in the process as well and becomes a shape-shifter, questioning his own identity and role.
Schönfeld’s focus is on specific groups with which he interacts, such as fan communities, participants in Live Action Role Playing, or artist colonies. Recently, though, he has embarked on a technological dream scenario. It features a non-human sentient, an artificial intelligence named NATURA*. This story connects and mixes with particular strands of contemporary philosophy such as speculative realism and neo-vitalism. It is propelled by its own logic, however, and has to generate the next step by itself. Edo Dijksterhuis