文/苏三

Introduction

In the social landscape of the post-industrial era, the rust of steel factories intertwines with the cold glare of glass wall, while data streams surge through fiber optics and algorithms seize decision-making power. This contradictory spacetime marks both the zenith of mechanical rationality and a wasteland for poetic dwelling. As 3D printing replaces handcrafted carving, AI generation challenges definitions of originality, and blockchain redistributes artistic authority, "post-industrial poetry" no longer nostalgically mourns pastoral idylls but deeply interrogates the ontology of art under technological intervention: How might the reorganization of tools birth new aesthetic grammars? Does digital survival gestate another form of humanistic spirit?

The term "post-industrial" here encompasses three expansive historical epochs. In the **Age of Mechanical Reproduction**, Walter Benjamin prophesied technology’s erosion of art’s *aura*, liberating art from cultic ritual into democratization. In the **Digital Information Age**, Jean Baudrillard’s *simulacra* and *simulation* exposed the blurred boundaries between real and illusory, as art dissolves into coded hyperreality. While the **AI Era** remains in rapid evolution, generative art’s disruptive potential already casts long shadows. We retain "post-industrial" rather than narrower terms because historical impacts are *superimposed*, not singular. Today, we inhabit a quantum state of overlapping timelines, where multidimensional experiences resist dissection.

Beneath the juggernaut of technological progress, individuals often stand powerless. Yet at the other end of the scale, human subjectivity persists in a cruel yet hopeful paradox. As Foucault’s theories reveal, the human subject remains ensnared in power-woven knowledge networks. Yet through aesthetic practices and the creation of heterotopic spaces, artists achieve "self-empowerment"—exposing mechanisms of control or reconstructing selves to resist or rebirth. This embodies not only artistic agency but also a foundation for resonance with viewers: shared temporal experiences forge fragile consensuses of subjectivity.

As technological revolutions lead artistic revolutions, how might we preserve the freedom of human subjectivity?

The ten young artists in this exhibition, hailing from diverse horizons, employ distinct concepts, forms, and methodologies, yet share collective resonances with our era. I have organized their works into three chapters, constructing this exhibition as a poetic manifesto.