At a time when technology is often blamed for distancing us from the natural world, Second Nature, the latest exhibition at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC), proposes a different possibility. Organised by experiential art venture Superblue and on view until January 10, 2027, the exhibition unfolds across four floors with large-scale installations by five internationally acclaimed artists and collectives working at the intersection of art, science and technology.
London-based Random International turns the visitor into the subject through responsive mirrors and disappearing portraits that explore identity and memory. Japanese collective teamLab creates living digital environments that transform with every movement, making no two encounters alike. Dutch artist Simon Heijdens brings weather-responsive digital plants indoors, artist duo A. A. Murakami captures the fleeting beauty of spring through delicate mist-filled blossoms, while British artist Es Devlin transforms 25 years of personal sketches into an installation that visitors gradually dismantle by taking fragments home.
For curator Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, the exhibition stems from a growing fascination with artists who are using technology not to escape nature, but to better understand it.
"I'm interested in the number of artists working in technology who are using that technology to replicate nature and natural processes. Almost as if by teaching technology to replicate nature we will reset our own relationship with the natural world," she tells Indulge Express.
That idea quietly runs through the exhibition. Whether it is teamLab's ever-changing digital flowers, Heijdens' weather-responsive Lightweeds or A.A.Murakami's ephemeral mist blossoms, technology becomes a medium through which natural processes are recreated, prompting viewers to reconsider their place within them.
But the exhibition doesn't present technology as an uncomplicated solution. "In this exhibition we examine both our own relationship with technology and nature. The artists approach this in a number of different ways, bringing both a fun and beautiful exhibition... but one also with some disquieting moments," says Mollie, hinting at the questions that linger long after the spectacle fades.
Unlike a traditional painting that remains unchanged regardless of who stands before it, teamLab's installations come alive only through collective presence. Here, strangers are no longer distractions to the viewing experience; they become an essential part of it. Every movement, pause and interaction subtly reshapes the artwork, making each visitor a co-creator in a work that is never truly finished.
In Second Nature, technology is not presented as the opposite of nature or humanity. Instead, it becomes a means of reconnecting—with the environment, with one another and, perhaps, with ourselves.
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