Ikon and University of Birmingham present We need 2 tlk, a new moving image installation by Midlands-based artist Exodus Crooks as part of AI FUTURES at The Exchange, the University of Birmingham’s city centre venue in Centenary Square.

Commissioned by Ikon and University of Birmingham, with support from Birmingham-based Vivid Projects, Exodus has explored public perceptions of AI and reflections on media and technology as outlined in the work of celebrated Jamaican-British academic and cultural theorist Professor Stuart Hall (1932–2014). Produced in collaboration with movement artist Chelsea Gordon, the artwork considers how developments in communication shift our behaviour in conversing with others. We need 2 tlk focuses on the haptics and gestures present in everyday phone use and the processing of information from the eye, brain and hands.

We need 2 tlk is presented in The Vaults, an exhibition space carved out from the old Municipal Bank’s basement secure room. On each side of the room, a film shows a pair of hands in motion, the fingers bending and flexing as if typing on an invisible mobile phone keyboard. Through the variation in speed and intensity of movement, We need 2 tlk considers how technology mediates the tone and sentiment of the message originally conveyed through gestures of the body.

This new commission is supported by University of Birmingham and Ikon Investment Fund. It is the latest in a series of collaborations between Ikon and The Exchange, including Foka Wolf, Why Are We Stuck in Hospital? and Vanley Burke, A Gift to Birmingham. Exodus Crooks at The Exchange is presented as part of Ikon’s 60th anniversary year. It follows Exodus Crooks’ exhibition Epiphany (Temporaire) at Ikon Gallery (9 February – 21 April 2024), commissioned by Ort Gallery and International Curators Forum (ICF), and curated by Orphée Kashala.

About the artist

Exodus Crooks is a British-Jamaican multidisciplinary artist and educator whose practice centres on the relationship with self. Observing the results of fractious domesticity and longing, their art tends to appear as questions of self-actualisation. Their breadth of experience in visual and performance art and education can be found in their work with the International Curators Forum, iniva, The New Art Gallery Walsall and The National Gallery, London.

About AI FUTURES

AI FUTURES runs from February to November 2024 at The Exchange and invites audiences to join the University of Birmingham on a journey into the brave new world of artificial intelligence. Through a programme of exhibitions and events, vital questions are explored through the lens of University research.