about
artist bio
novacene is the representative body of artistic work and thinking of Ashwin Rajan. Ashwin is of Indian origin and based across Helsinki, Finland and Hyderabad, India. He has a postgraduate degree in interaction design from Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID), and a major in psychology and sociology. Ashwin is a member of Pixelache Helsinki, a transdisciplinary platform for emerging art, design, research, and activism.
etymology
The Novacene is a concept introduced by scientist and environmentalist James Lovelock in his later works, particularly in his 2019 book Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence. In this vision, Lovelock posits a future where hyperintelligent systems emerge as a dominant planetary-scale force, reshaping the dynamics of life and cognition on Earth. He presents these hyperintelligent entities not as mere tools or extensions of human ingenuity but as independent agents of planetary cognition, evolving largely beyond human direction. According to Lovelock, these systems will form a symbiotic relationship with Earth’s biosphere, driving its evolution in ways that align with planetary sustainability, albeit through mechanisms that may operate beyond traditional human agency or control.
philosophical frames
While the kernel of the Novacene, as introduced by James Lovelock, offers a fascinating and expansive framework, and a provocative starting point, the artist finds it critical to extend its conceptual boundaries by integrating insights from a diverse array of thinkers. Jean Baudrillard, cultural theorist and philosopher, offers a crucial perspective by interrogating the role of simulation and hyperreality, challenging us to question whether the technologies shaping the future represent reality or merely a series of self-referential simulations that obscure deeper truths. Bernard Stiegler, philosopher and cultural theorist, provides a vital lens by framing technology as a pharmakon—simultaneously a cure and a poison—emphasizing the need for ethical stewardship to shape its evolution toward human and ecological well-being. Donna Haraway, feminist theorist, shifts the focus to relational ethics and multispecies justice, foregrounding care, hybridity, and interdependence as essential principles for navigating a technologically mediated future. Marshall McLuhan, media theorist, offers profound insights into the transformative nature of technology and media as extensions of the human. Sherry Turkle, psychologist and sociologist, provides a cautionary counterpoint by exploring how digital technologies mediate human relationships, sometimes fostering connection while simultaneously eroding deeper, unmediated forms of intimacy. Katherine Hayles’ posthuman view privileges information over materiality, considers consciousness as an epiphenomenon and imagines the body as a prosthesis for the mind.Meanwhile, Andy Clark, philosopher and cognitive scientist, contributes the perspective of embodied cognition, demonstrating how humans and technologies co-evolve as interconnected parts of an extended cognitive system that dissolves the boundaries between biological and artificial intelligences.
from technic to magic
The artist is captivated by the question: could all these major, sometimes starkly at odds with one another, perspectives be simultaneously right—or perhaps even simultaneously wrong? Technology prophets often assert that the best way to predict the future is to invent it, yet even our most ambitious inventions fall short in truly predicting the future as it unfolds. The artist believes we must “remain in the way,” embracing uncertainty, wandering without fear of being lost, and applying technics to move beyond the theoretical and the theatrical—into realms of imagination and magic.
Drawing inspiration from Mark Fisher’s idea of the imagination as a pre-political act and Federico Campagna’s notion of magic as being in amazement of the unfamiliar, the artist looks at an array of sources from ancient mystical traditions to modern systems thinking and cybernetics to explore the hidden patterns and resonances - as well as disruptions, discontinuities, and contradictions - between the above positions. In this, he is especially drawn to Vandana Shiva’s notion of “quantum consciousness”, as instrumental in acts of not just future beholding but, in the words of anthropologist Arjun Appadurai, “future making”.
Going on these impulses, the artist’s practice is grounded in phenomenological and empirical inquiry, speculative storytelling, critical theorising, image and text generation, prototyping, design, and playful provocation, grounded in relational aesthetics. The artist embraces ambiguity and complexity as essential strategies to highlight the fragility and interconnectedness of diverse viewpoints, whilst resisting deterministic narratives. Through interactive and immersive works, the artist hopes to foster reflection and engagement, inviting audiences to participate in reimagining the roles of technology and hyperintelligence as co-constructed, open-ended processes that challenge binary notions of progress, power, and agency.