At the end of Ridley Scott's cult film Blade Runner from 1982, the main character Rick Deckard is confronted with the question of whether he himself is a replicant, a near-perfect robot that believes itself to be human. Are all his memories, feelings, and dreams merely the product of artificial implantation? It is the bombshell that heralds the dawn of the 21st century.

«Uncanny Garden» transforms the grounds of the City SALTS art space into a breathing parcours of humanoid presences, anthropomorphic apparitions, puppet creatures, and manifestations of artificial intelligence. Increasing similarities between humans and their doppelgangers create closeness and, on closer inspection, unease. Between life and death, lifeless as matter, yet animated by human imagination or technological progress, they lead into the uncanny valley of the identical. Sometimes the imagination gets out of control.

Following the «Museum of Broken Relationships» (2015), the «Field Experiments» (2017), and «On Fire: Vulnerable Footage» (2019), our exhibition project is once again a central part of the program in its fifth edition. As in 2019, our partner is Kunstverein SALTS.