NEW YORK, NY.- Artist, author, and lecturer John Mack announces a month-long immersive exhibition A Species Between Worlds: Our Nature, Our Screens. Over the month of September, the exhibition examines the intersection of humanity and technology via a gamified meditation experience aimed at restoring balance between ourselves and our smart devices. A Species Between Worlds also serves as a forum featuring a rich program of talks and events, free to the public, that will convene thought leaders from around the world on the increasingly slippery boundary between our humanity and our technology.

A Species Between Worlds combines thought-provoking artwork with an inspiring program that brings together a unique group of high profile speakers and leaders from the fields of art, academia, technology, and business to explore the nexus of new technology and human behavior through a multidisciplinary lens. Program highlights include Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, a conversation with Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, a panel hosted by Stanford University Professors Rob Reich, Jeremey Weinstein and Mehran Sahami to discuss their book, System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot, a panel on the State of Social Media featuring NYU’s Jonathan Haidt, a keynote from Monica Lewinsky who will touch on the effects of cyberbullying and much more. Programming partnerships include the David Lynch Foundation, Life Calling Initiative, Fairplay, The Tibet House, New York Center for Living, The Explorer’s Club, and more.

“Humans are a species between worlds. We’re on a mass-migration from the natural world to the digital world, abdicating our natural spaces while expanding digital ones. Smartphones, designed to be tools, have become our reality — and with every swipe, tap and pinch, our humanity is being exported, little by little.” states John Mack. “I’m very consciously not anti-technology, but rather I aim to foster mindfulness so that our devices serve as our tools and not the other way around. The exhibition is an invitation to contemplate our relationship to our devices and the surrounding world while inspiring the introspection needed to prevent the loss of our humanity.”

A Species Between Worlds was sparked by the Pokémon Go craze and a subsequent stampede in Taipei in 2016. During that time, Mack was drawn to how the phenomenon was blurring the boundaries between virtuality and reality. Developed over the past six years this exhibition presents a technology-forward narrative arc that centers the individual and aims to foster balance and awareness between our technology and ourselves. A Species Between Worlds will showcase more than 65 artworks across 17,000 square feet that feature imagery of more than 50 U.S. National Parks and the Seven Wonders of the Natural World, all manipulated and combined with artificial landscapes from the Pokémon Go app. The exhibition will also offer a customized app that guides visitors throughout a gamified psychological exploration framed by the artifice of the Pokémon Go interface, which gradually fades as reality is restored.

A Species Between Worlds is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The exhibition also coincides with the publication of Mack’s collection of poetry, A Land Between Worlds: The Shifting Poetry of the Great American Landscape.