In an Art Fair, the artworks on display are usually simple and easy to read, so it's the visual attraction what prevails. At Biennials (or Triennials, in this case), the experience offered is quite different, because artists present riskier works, half way between the violent and the encrypted, all of them with a social meaning. The triennial Surround Audience at the New Museum of Modern Art in New York seeks to explore the effects a highly-technological world has had on mankind.

Freedom, by Josh Kline (2015)

Installation

The New Museum of Modern Art

The artwork above, star of the exhibition, uses a political and social address to produce a devastating effect. The installation wants to demonstrate how men have been transformed into commodities and instruments of neoliberal communities. It shows a highly-controled regime where citizens are subdued. A never-ending vigilance system is represented by an army of policemen with technological wardrobe, resembling Teletubbies.

SOHO (Substances of Human Origin), by Aleksandra Domanovic (2015)

Installation - Different materials. 

New Museum of Modern Art

Many of the artworks speak of the transformation our body has suffered through technology. This is the case of the installation presented by Aleksandra Domanovic (former Yugoslavia, 1981), an artist interested in the work of scientist Rajko Tomovic, creator of the first prosthetic hands with sensibility for injured soldiers in Belgrade. The sculptures of the installation were made with a 3D printer, copied from Tomovic's hand models. However, the organs, tissues and cells for transplants have a human origin and were transformed. To get closer to the hands, one must walk through a clear curtain that, from one side or the other, modifies those human cells.

Distant Feel, by Antoine Catala (2015)

Different materials.

Other recurring issues in this type of exhibition is the preservation of what's being destroyed by the hand of men. French artist Antoine Catala created a symbol for the term "empathy": two letters E, facing each other. It's like an ad selling a feeling. According to Catala, technology has taken us to the loss of sensibility towards others. The two letters, submerged in water and covered by living corals linger there, as a symbol of life.
This edition of the Triennial has been criticized for not achieving the original aim completely. Best manufacture in the artworks was expected. That same technology, much questioned in the artworks, was not put into service for the making of them.