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In 14th-century Florentine Italy, the lifelike emergence of wax sculptures provoked an erotic panic. With their fleshy tones, human hair, and clothing, these figures blurred the lines between life and objecthood. They were kissed, feared, worshipped – interacted with as if alive. This visceral unease touched theology and philosophy, inciting a panic rooted in man playing God, daring to sculpt not just likeness but life itself.

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Today, we find ourselves facing a similar panic. But the uncanny now arises not from wax, but from data, more specifically data in the flesh, The in-animate coded animate, born and bred in human-generated data points. The skeletal form of robots as we knew them, now made flesh-like, liminal, omniscient.  

Inanimate probes how attachment and affect are increasingly projected onto non-human forms, and how these forms, in turn, reshape our understanding of connection. With works from Poppy Cauchi, Annie Edwards, Vanessa Amoah Opoku, Neusa Trovoada, Siyang Wang, Pin-Yu Wu, and Kate Youme, sound performances by Odera and Lowree, and a Build a Cyborg workshop led by Liv Owens, this exhibition explores our increasingly entangled relationships with technological bodies as companions, healers, mediators, trackers, imitators, and more.

As technological advancement accelerates, it brings with it a complex storm of exploitation, convenience, detachment from embodied reality, and a deepening exclusion for those who are unwilling or unable to adapt. Inanimate offers a space to critically engage with these conditions, look into the future and respond to it before it is imposed on us.