Ian Cheng

Ian Cheng’s work explores the nature of mutation and the capacity of humans to relate to change. Drawing on principles of video game design, improv, and cognitive science, Cheng has developed “live simulations”; living virtual ecosystems that begin with basic programmed properties, but are left to self-evolve without authorial intent or end. His simulations model the dynamics of often imaginative organisms and objects, but do so with the unforgiving causality found in nature itself. What results is a cascade of emergent behaviors that the artist can manage but never truly control. 

Ian Cheng current and recent solo exhibitions include: BOB, Serpentine Gallery, London (2018); Emissaries, MoMA PS1, New York (2017); Forking at Perfection, Migros Museum, Zurich, curated by Raphael Gygax (2016); Emissary Forks At Perfection, Pilar Corrias Gallery, London (2015); Emissary in the Squat of Gods, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2015); Real Humans, with Wu Tsang, Jordan Wolfson, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf (2015); Ian Cheng, La Triennale di Milano, Milan (2014); Baby feat. Bali, Standard (Oslo), Oslo (2013); Entropy Wrangler, Off Vendome, Düsseldorf (2013); Too Humans All Too Humans, Vanity, Los Angeles (2013); and This Papaya Tastes Perfect, Formalist Sidewalk Poetry Club, Miami Beach (2011).