LUAN GALLERY PRESENTS In Conversation: Nadia J Armstrong and Colin Martin

On Saturday 8th November Luan Gallery hosted an in-conversation event, led by curator Aoife Banks, in dialogue with SYSTEM ARMING exhibiting artists Nadia Armstrong and Colin Martin. Together, they discussed how their practices engage with the exhibition’s central themes - exploring the shifting intersections of art, technology, and power in our digital age. The exhibition will continue until Sunday 16th November.

SYSTEM ARMING explores the complex ways digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and transhumanism intersect with contemporary power structures. Through sculpture, film, and installation, the exhibiting artists examine how data mining, algorithms, and machine learning shape our daily lives, and how these technologies are increasingly used to influence or control behaviour, reshaping human agency, perception, and collective intelligence. The works in this exhibition confront the tangible, real-world impacts of these systems, from the psychological strain of algorithmic manipulation to the environmental costs of energy-intensive data centres. SYSTEM ARMING invites audiences to consider the ethical, social, and existential questions of living in a world designed to anticipate, influence, and ultimately arm itself against us.

Nadia J. Armstrong’s newly commissioned installation Girl Hero imagines a techno-feminist future through a speculative protagonist. Tracing the entanglements of quantum communication, bodies, and machines, Armstrong envisions a “Quantum Imaginary” that resists technocracy and emerging forms of techno-feudalism.

Colin Martin’s paintings explore our “prosthetic” relationship with technology, drawing on science fiction and histories of surveillance. From obsolete media and computer museums to the corporate architectures of Amazon and Tesla, his work reflects on how technology reshapes culture, politics, and everyday life. 

Information on the exhibition and accompanying upcoming events can be found at www.luangallery.ie and on Luan Gallery’s social channels @luangalleryathlone on Instagram and Luan Gallery on Facebook.   System Arming will continue until Sunday, 16th November. Admission to the gallery is free for groups and individuals. Tours for schools and groups can be arranged by contacting the gallery in advance. Luan Gallery is open to the public Tuesday to Saturday from 11 am – 5 pm and Sundays from 12 – 5 pm.