Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time & Technology
Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg with their sculpture,Tree of Knowledge. The artists used pyrography to burn over nearly 200 historical questions that underlie our collective pursuit of knowledge into a 10,000-pound, salvaged Eucalyptus tree section. Questions include: “Do we have free will?”, “Is there a grand unified theory of physics?”, “Can machines be truly intelligent?”, "What is the meaning of life?"
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
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Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg are long-time collaborators whose interdisciplinary practices converge across art, technology, and human systems. While this exhibition marks their most expansive visual art collaboration to date, each maintains a distinct and internationally recognized practice.
Tiffany Shlain is a multidisciplinary artist working across sculpture, film, and participatory projects. Her practice explores feminism, technology, neuroscience, and nature, often translating complex ideas into visual and collective experiences.
Her work has been presented at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She is the founder of the Webby Awards and an Emmy-nominated filmmaker whose work has received over 60 awards. Public talks, performances, and programs form a central component of her practice, extending her work into shared civic space.
Ken Goldberg is an artist, inventor, and professor whose work bridges robotics, artificial intelligence, and contemporary art. Combining conceptual strategies with engineering systems, he creates interactive and networked works that explore the relationship between humans and machines.
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Goldberg is a professor at University of California Berkeley, where he directs the Automation Sciences Lab. His work has been exhibited internationally, including in the Whitney Biennial, and is held in major collections such as the Museum of Modern Art.
Tiffany Shlain
Ken Goldberg
