Modern Guru and the Path to Artificial Happiness

A sparkling new art gallery and museum fully funded by the City of Coffs Harbour, Yarrila Arts and Museum (YAM) celebrates its first year reflecting on “light”—drawn from the translation of the gallery’s name in the local Gumbaynggirr language. The programming is designed to take you out of the day-to-day into a transcendent experience. Starting with Modern Guru and the Path to Artificial Happiness by Melbourne-based multi-media art and technology studio ENESS.

Modern Guru and the Path to Artificial Happiness begins YAM’s explosion of light. Towering over you, “glitchy” inflatable trees in hues of pink, purple, and red are adorned with static images familiar to those who have experienced analogue TV finding a signal. Blocking the entrance for an immersion in the exhibition. The light radiates throughout the space, joined by flashing, blinking eyes on long black legs, “stick insects” or, as those of us who live on the mid-north coast are very familiar with, mosquitos. They double as guardians and protectors of “The Guru.”

The Guru. A large, inflatable, transparent, ovoid-shaped balloon-like structure fills the room. With four round eyes glazing at you. And a mouth that spurts out messages of long paper trains of happiness. This is the creation of ENESS, headed by Artist and Founder Nimrod Weis. As they self-describe, underpinning their philosophy is art that creates “joy, happiness and beauty in unexpected places – transformational experiences that change lives.” They are “happiness architects.”

Generated by AI, trawling the internet for philosophical mantras, The Guru invites its audience to connect. Holding your phone up to take a photo, the machine starts to generate. My message: “Compassion arises from understanding the interconnectedness of all beings.” The paper spans longer than my arm. A point of conversation, these dispatches become part of the installation, piled up around the insects and the base of The Guru. Audiences return for new messages. Some find a spiritual connection to what they receive. Others enjoy the absurdist fun of it all.

But, as this exhibition displays, art can bring people together for a sense of community and shared experience. Supporting regional towns with dynamic art programs builds the entire country’s value in a multifaceted approach.

Where the reach of contemporary art is limited, and site-specific multi-media art is rare, it highlights the importance of exhibitions travelling to regional Australia. Modern Guru and the Path to Artificial Happiness has the ease and potential to tour rural galleries. The set-up is simple, inflatable, easy to transport, and immersive and engaging to all ages.

Modern Guru and the Path to Artificial Happiness offers a duality of art in regional Australia at the intersection of art and technology, exposing new mediums to regional audiences. The exhibition muses on AI at the crux of endeavour mapping and mimicking human artistry. Yet here, the mash up and connection to other audience members offers community. In Digital divide: Claire Bishop on contemporary art and new media for Artforum (September 2012), Bishop shares, “Socially engaged art has tended to favor intersubjective exchange and homespun activities (cooking, gardening, conversation), with the aim of reinforcing a social bond fragmented by spectacle.” However, as she theorises, digital art can do the same in creating a platform for collaboration and activated spectatorship who co-produced content. The audience controls the release of the paper philosophical musing on happiness through their capturing of The Guru, and then the distribution of these messages.

In regional towns, community is at the heart of programming. The magic thus revealed in exhibitions like these and gallery spaces that want to unite us and pull us so far out of our everyday. Digital art and AI becomes a place to really explore the depths of art. The depths of human existence. What message will you get next? To keep or discard. A chuckle or giggle. Fingers accidentally touching around the glitchy blow-up trees. Another giggle. Everything is now twinkling with possibility. What will the Guru tell you?

Modern Guru and the Path to Artificial Happiness is joined by the biofuturistic Serendipia by Kathryn Cowen and Gareth Jenkins; and Electric Dreams, a group exhibition including Taree Mackenzie, Jason Sims and Brendan Van Hek. All three exhibitions continue until 10 November 2024.

EXHIBITION
Modern Guru and the Path to Artificial Happiness 
24 August – 10 November 2024
Yarrila Arts and Museum, NSW