Sophie Erlund: The Green Spill
31.10. – 20.12.2025
The Green Spill is an immersive mixed-reality virtual experience (XR) that invites participants to explore the profound intersections of biology, neurology, and technology in the age of digital transformation. Through three distinct ’worlds’ in three separate XR goggles —biology, neurology, and technology—participants are guided on a journey that examines the human condition, our evolving relationship with the natural world, and the deep tensions between our physical bodies and the digital realms we inhabit. As participants move through the mixed-reality environment, they are guided by a narrator who challenges them to engage their senses, reflect on their place in the world, and question the boundaries between self and other, physical and virtual.
At the heart of the physical installation are three quasi human-size sculptures, spaced out approximately in a total radius of 4-5m. The sculptures are monolithic in character and function as a station, a home base for each XR goggle. Inside each google is an immersive environment with a strong narrator voice guiding and prompting the viewer as they move through the exhibition space. Three people can actively use the goggles simultaneously but do not experience each other in any given world at any time.
Biology world
The sculpture for the biology goggle is a luminous green sculpture, a tactile anchor and symbol of the digital era. This ‘internet green’, a color born of early computer screens and green-screen technology, serves as a portal into the philosophical questions the artwork raises. What does it mean to be human in a world increasingly mediated by algorithms, automation, and virtual realities? How do our physical, biological selves persist in spaces designed to transcend the material? Inside the biology goggle, participants are immersed in a vibrant, interconnected world that blurs the boundaries between their bodies and the environment. The narrator speaks of the shared breath of all living things, and the deep lineage connecting humans to the more-than-human world, evoking a sense of unity with the natural world. Through tactile prompts and reflective questions, the experience invites participants to sense their place within this entanglement.
Neurology world
The sculpture for the neurology goggle is a bulbous form, in semi-translucent material with soft, pastel-like colors and seemingly glowing from the inside. The neurology goggle immerses participants in a luminous, pulsating world that reflects the profound and fragile workings of the human mind. Its sculpture, with its semi-translucent, bulbous form and soft internal glow, evokes the brain not merely as a biological organ but as the cradle of our deepest vulnerabilities and potential for healing. Guided by the narrator, participants are invited to explore the ways in which the mind holds both our pain and our capacity for connection, revealing the intricate interplay between the wounds we carry, the patterns they create, and the profound possibility for self-awareness and transformation.
Technology world
The technology goggle immerses participants in a stark, mechanical world, where at the first encounter the presence of automation looms large and impersonal. The sculpture is a tall, bullet-like form with a dark, imposing exterior. Inside, the narrator guides participants through an intricate landscape of gears, chains, and computer components, inviting reflection on the advent of automation and on how technology has shifted from being a tool to an autonomous force that increasingly influences –governs even– our lives. The experience challenges viewers to confront the disconnection between human thought and labor and the systems that now replace them, asking: in a world driven by automation, what becomes of our sense of purpose, control, and connection to the work we do? The experience also reflects on the possibility of a new kind of relationship with technology—one that invites collaboration rather than domination, offering the potential for human flourishing in an increasingly automated world.
The Green Spill invites a deep, personal reflection on how technological advancement reshapes our understanding of self, body, and community. The work challenges the boundaries between the physical and digital, urging participants to reconsider their place in a world where these realms increasingly converge. It asks: what do we lose—and what do we gain—as we navigate a future shaped by machines and algorithms? By embracing the opacity and complexity of this transformation, The Green Spill encourages a reimagining of what it means to be human in an age where the lines between the organic and the artificial are ever more difficult to discern.
Between October 31st till November 2nd, 2025, the XR installation The Green Spill is on display at the Neue Nationalgalerie as part of the Festival of Future Nows 2025, while new glass works by Sophie Erlund as well as visual and theoretical insights to The Green Spill are on display at PSM. The opening days (Friday and Saturday) offer to visit both venues, while from November 4th till December 20, 2025, the XR installation can also be experienced in our gallery space.
Sophie Erlund (*1978, Denmark) lives and works in Berlin. She holds a degree in Fine Art Sculpture from Central St. Martin’s College of Art & Design in London. In her practice, Erlund has long explored a variety of themes and questions about the human experience and its relationship with the more-than-human world, creating sculptures, installations, videos and complex soundscapes and virtual reality artworks, which deal with the central theme of transition and understanding the world through the irrational mind, and in particular our ongoing entanglement with artificial intelligence and its impact on our psychology. Recent solo exhibitions include Nature is an event that never stops, PSM, Berlin, DE (2023), Destined to Protect the Productive, PSM, Berlin, DE (2021), Acting in Concert, SP A C ED OU T, Kerkow, DE (2019). Her work was shown in several group exhibitions, such as Festival of Future Nows, Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, DE (2025), Worlds in Motion, 30 Years Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, DE (2024), Worlds Within Worlds, curated by Jelena Tamindžija Donnart, Museum of Contemporary Art, Dubrovnik, HR (2023) and Rewilding Attention, screening program as part of Rewilding the Museum at ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj, DK (2022).
Sophie Erlund is also a tenured Professor of Art in Architecture at TU Munich, since 2025.
Exhibition dates: October 31 – December 20, 2025
Open: Tuesday – Saturday 12 – 6 pm
Festival of Future Nows:
Friday, October 31: 7 pm – 12 am
Saturday, November 1: 10 am – 12 am
Sunday, November 2: 10 am – 6 pm