Memory. The act of recalling past impressions or experiences is a key concept in imagination. From time to time, we recall things that are ambiguous—we can’t quite define whether we actually experienced them or merely sensed them. This is why, when explaining memory from a Freudian perspective, we can refer to it as the “unconscious.” Even what we cannot remember is said to be memory. By demonstrating how our memory expands, the depth of imagination itself becomes a form of content.

Adrian Villar Rojas’s work stems from his “Time Engine”—a tool he has previously introduced in various contexts—which is a digital simulation tool that combines a video game engine, artificial intelligence, and virtual worlds. The artist constructs a changing world—including architecture, ecosystems, and social conditions—within a digital space, then downloads the virtual sculptures generated there to materialize them in physical form in the real world. These virtual sculptures are composed of layered organic and inorganic materials—such as metal, plastic, soil, and tree bark—that bear the traces of both human and machine labor.

By subverting the fundamental concepts that technology is created through human interaction and development, and that the Earth is sustained through ecological cycles, the artist presents the vast and abstract discourse of human extinction through combinations of familiar yet absurd materials. The artist seems to offer viewers a glimpse into the process of creating a high-tension imagination where fact and fiction—that is, the voluntary and the involuntary—intertwine.

Adrian Villar Rojas: The Language of the Enemy is Adrian Villar Rojas’s first solo exhibition in Korea, held at the Art Sonje Center from September 3 to February 1 of the following year. Reflecting his artistic style, which primarily involves long-term projects, this exhibition also features a large scale that spans the entire building, from the basement level to the third floor. In particular, his works are characterized by “site-specific art,” meaning that the location itself becomes the material for the artwork by taking into account all elements—such as climate, temperature, and the viewers’ viewing habits. This approach is also linked to the artist’s distinctive exhibition production methods. Since Rojas primarily creates large-scale installations, he uses materials from the region where his work will be exhibited. As seen in this exhibition, which incorporates Korean pine, his practice of treating the characteristics of the region and the site itself as a vast medium is particularly noteworthy.

In this unfamiliar world—whether a single archaeological site or the ruins of an imagined future—viewers directly experience and explore the space, witnessing a science-fiction narrative of creation and destruction. Adrian Villar Rojas appears to depict a desolate human space, ultimately dominated by the “enemy”—presumably a reference to AI—amidst a crisis where humanity’s sustainability has become uncertain. In an interview, Rojas states that his show may not be about the end of the world, but rather a way of expressing his thoughts on the alternative possibilities of the art museum and how it might function. As if to prove this, the exhibition prompts us to reflect on the “post-Anthropocene” era, situated somewhere on the boundary between human progress and human extinction.

The exhibition title, “The Language of the Enemy,” is also quite intriguing. The “language” referred to here likely signifies something different from the language we use, which is composed of characters and symbols. Through the traces of humanity scattered throughout the exhibition space—traces that have been silenced and excluded—and through this silence itself, viewers experience a language unique to these subjects.

The exhibition begins at the staircase leading down to the basement next to the museum’s main entrance. As you descend, passing the nest of an Argentine ornithorhynchus bird—which the artist uses as his signature—you’ll come upon an art hall covered in plastic sheeting and with the lights turned off, resembling an abandoned performance venue. Although the space feels familiar, it evokes a sense of dissonance, as if deconstructing its original purpose. As you ascend via the emergency staircase and inhale the slightly damp air, you’ll encounter a lobby and first-floor space filled with an immense amount of soil. A sealed-off entrance, walls revealing exposed concrete, potatoes and sweet potatoes sprouting as if they’ve been here for a long time, and a temperature and humidity level that aren’t exactly pleasant. It feels as though the garden outside has expanded into the art museum, prompting you to explore cautiously, as if you’ve become a visitor in a space created by humans. Starting on the first floor, we humans find ourselves unable to control the environment surrounding us. There is a term called the “Anthropocene.” It refers to an era in which the Earth’s environment has changed drastically due to rapid human technological advancement, and it is a subject of ongoing debate regarding whether we should formally designate the present—a time when humans are directly influencing the Earth—as a distinct geological epoch. In the Anthropocene, humanity believes it can overcome everything. However, this installation prompts us to reflect on the things beyond human control—from the earth blocking the very entrance to the museum, to the microorganisms spreading unnoticed, to the heat and humidity that make us grimace yet leave us powerless to act.

As soon as you ascend to the second floor, it takes your breath away. An indescribable musty odor and humidity even higher than before make you feel as if you’re reliving the midsummer monsoon. To enter the room housing the second-floor artwork, you must step over what feels like a high threshold. This square opening separating the rooms and the walls beside it are covered with the checkerboard pattern used on a blank canvas in Photoshop. Through this, the artist invites the audience into the digital coordinates she has drawn and into the world she has created. Was it perhaps to give us—who exist in the real world—the feeling that we are coexisting with the artwork in a digital space, an unknown space, a virtual space, by placing us onto this virtual canvas?

The work that fills this space and lends it a sense of weight is the series The End of Imagination. Among the pine trees, massive spaceships or masses of machinery made of various materials—as well as forms resembling crumpled robots—hang upside down from the ceiling. By overturning the established order of “the laws of gravity” and shifting the viewer’s perception, the work creates a sense of “reversal,” which further heightens its tension. This work, whose starting point is unclear, is reminiscent of Guillaume Apollinaire’s calligrams. It overturns the grammar of the world as humanity knows it, presenting the arrangement of space as a role just as important as the artwork itself. It seems to serve as a device that invites us to imagine a future world written in a unique grammar. The source of this unique grammar is Adrián Villar Rojas’s “Time Engine.” “Time Engine” is a type of digital simulation tool that combines a video game engine, artificial intelligence, and a virtual world. The artist constructs a world within this digital space—a blend of evolving living organisms and architecture—and then materializes the resulting virtual sculptures in the real world. The materials that make up these virtual sculptures are primarily composites of organic and inorganic elements, such as metal, concrete, soil, and tree bark. The artist’s statement—“I model the world, and that world models ‘sculptures’ for me”—clearly explains the principle of the Time Engine, which brings into reality what previously existed as images in the digital world. It is best to view the Time Engine not as a mere technology, but as a projection of Rojas’s artistic universe. The results of this mutual modeling between Rojas and the world do not reflect the continuous development and achievements of human civilization, but rather a kind of “reverse side”—ruins, extinction, and silence. Much like “seeing based on the premise of the unseen,” his works depict a future—a part of which remains invisible to us—in which human civilization is gradually reduced to nothing more than “artefacts.” The question posed to us here is this: If a great deal of time were to pass, and someone other than humanity were to encounter the complex structures depicted in the End of Imagination series—where the hierarchy between organic and inorganic matter, and between the human and the non-human, has been shattered—how would they define what human civilization is composed of?

Although I should have mentioned this first, let’s go back down to the first floor. There, you’ll see a large robotic sculpture kneeling on the ground; this is El Fin de la Imaginación III (The End of Imagination III), inspired by the robots NASA built for lunar exploration. On its right foot, it wears the boots Neil Armstrong wore during the Apollo 11 landing, and in its left hand, it holds a miniature of Michelangelo’s David, symbolizing the human-centered civilization of the Renaissance. “An indictment of corrupted originality.” That phrase came to mind. Michelangelo’s David, which this robot is holding, embodies the most perfect and beautiful form of humanity and is regarded as a work that epitomizes the spirit of the Renaissance. In other words, it possesses massive, abstract, “capital-I” characteristics. Yet this has been transformed in an instant—by a robot, a mass of machinery that one might imagine becoming the conqueror of future generations—into a trite object destined to become a replica, a miniature, or mere dust. It seems to be the moment when the originality of “capital-I” imagination is defiled, exposing its finitude. As we witness the conquest of human heritage by nature or machines, we break free from anthropocentric thinking and are reborn into a “lowercase” state, imagining a post-human world—a world beyond the Anthropocene. We will experience how abstract and lowercase concepts—which may still feel absurd—replace the compromised “capital” ones, establishing themselves in the realm of truly original imagination.

The Enemy's Language, which is also the title of the exhibition, conveys the message that we must relearn the language of the enemy. As mentioned earlier, this language transcends the language composed of letters and symbols; it is another form of communication that makes us aware of what has fallen into silence. While the “enemy” is perceived as threatening, situated entirely in the realm of the Other, and evoking hostile imagery, the “enemy” Rojas refers to is also “the mirror that first allowed us to recognize ourselves.” I find myself wondering if the fact that humanity first came to recognize itself—in other words—means that modern Homo sapiens have come face-to-face with their predecessors. The language of the “enemy” generated by Rojas’s Time Engine deconstructs the traces of humanity and proposes a new mode of communication for the world that will follow humanity. Perhaps we can reconsider the idea that, paradoxically, the “enemy” is not so much an entity seeking to destroy us and bring about our demise, but rather a guide that enables the realization of a new imagination.