In artist Cao Fei's latest video work Dash, people worship drones using rituals meant for deities.

Farmers replace deity statues with drones in processions to pray for a bountiful harvest in Dash.

More women are using drones for agricultural work.

Cao Fei's art project Dash, exhibited in Milan, includes videos and documentary footage, such as Southward Journey.

Artist Cao Fei.

Cao's sci-fi film Nova follows the story of a computer scientist engaged in a secret international project.

As artificial intelligence sweeps the world, does automation signal a future without humanity? In a quest to grapple with this thought-provoking question, Chinese artist Cao Fei has spent the past three years immersed in the fields and farmlands of China and Southeast Asia, focusing on smart farming, a technological revolution driven by the use of agricultural drones, AI algorithms, and the subtle coexistence of age-old traditions and innovation.

These years of deep engagement have culminated in her latest art project, Dash, or Super Farms to Chinese audiences, a multimedia exhibition set to debut at the Prada Foundation in Milan on April 9.

More than a simple showcase of smart farming, the exhibition extends the artist's decades-long career in exploring humanity's relationship with technology, which is central to her vital role in the art world, depicting China's rapid changes and the individuals affected by them.

Since 2023, Cao has visited farms in Guangdong province and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, as well as in Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand, turning her lens on the use of modern technologies such as drones and autonomous vehicles. She has also focused on "contemporary farmers" who operate these innovative tools, ranging from traditional farmers learning new technologies to urban white-collar workers and members of the post-2000 generation.

"'Unmanned' does not signify the disappearance of humans but rather their retreat from manual labor to becoming the entities behind the machines and systems," the 48-yearold explains.

Her exhibition displays a rich array of media, including video works, installations, multimedia, photos, archives, and virtual reality, to immerse audiences in the past, present, and future of smart agriculture. The artist weaves a complex narrative of a global agricultural tech revolution, inviting audiences to reimagine how technology reshapes human lives, traditions and relationships with the land.

The ground floor of the Prada Foundation has been transformed into an archaeological site. Visitors are invited to step into sunken exhibition areas resembling excavation pits, where they encounter artist-constructed spaces, including a grain warehouse, a new farmer's station, a temple-like structure woven from fertilizer bags, and a small banana plantation.

Cao's new video work, Dash, is displayed on two screens inside the grain warehouse. Art critic Yang Beichen says: "In the work, humans and machines are gradually merging, forming a new relationship of 'co-thinking'."

Another of her pieces, The Birth, which explores the production of drones, is screened in the temple — almost as if drones are worshipped there. This idea was inspired by Southeast Asian farmers who revere these machines. In parts of China's Guangdong province, people traditionally carry statues of their gods through the streets to pray for blessings. However, in Cao's video, people carry drones in a similar ritual procession seeking a bountiful harvest.

Cao says the act of elevating drones to a sacred status reflects how, amid technological advancements, people transfer their emotions and connection to the land onto modern tools. What was once tied to traditional oxen and farming implements has now shifted to drones and autonomous vehicles.

"People are channeling their simple desire for a good harvest to technological tools. It's an intriguing blend of traditional beliefs and modern technology, and it shows how humanity forms emotional bonds with technology in new ways," she explains.

Ju Xi with Beijing Normal University agrees with such new relationship. Ju points out that technology does not necessarily destroy the relationship between humans and nature, but may also reconstruct it in a different way.

Cao's video works have long straddled the boundary between surrealism and documentary. Parts of her creations are rooted in real-life observations, while others emerge from artistic imagination and creative interpretation.

"My works have no scripts and no preset plans; they grow organically during the filming process," she says.

While filming on a cotton farm in Xinjiang, Cao felt the video lacked dramatic elements, such as extreme weather. Then, one day during shooting, the local meteorological department issued a windstorm alert. As luck would have it, they were on site when it happened, and the team captured footage of cotton plants being uprooted by gale-force winds.

While showcasing the transformative impact of technology on agriculture, the artist also offers her own reflections. The VR game installation Dash-180c allows visitors to adopt the perspective of a discarded agricultural drone, providing a futuristic vision of a world where technology has fully reshaped farming.

Set in 2046, the game imagines a future where drones have been abandoned. A group of monkeys accidentally reactivates one, and through its perspective, visitors explore a sci-fi-inspired future agricultural world. However, in a small corner of this immersive landscape, visitors encounter an elderly farmer practicing traditional farming methods. Treated as a form of intangible cultural heritage, this figure represents, in the artist's view, a potential coexistence of tradition and technology.

Cao points out that in this work, the drone is regulated because it empathizes too much with humans. This symbolizes a social shift toward reflecting on technological development, moving away from unchecked, aggressive expansion.

Her hope for the future of agriculture is a return to the most traditional model of harmonious development — one that "balances technology and nature, tradition and modernity".

Showcasing the landscape of smart agriculture in China, the artist has also created an exhibition space on the first floor dedicated to agricultural development. The historical documents, posters, books, and archival materials presented, spanning from the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 to the 1980s, highlight the pivotal role of agriculture in national progress.

"I hope the audience sees that today's smart farming did not suddenly emerge, but is the inevitable result of China's development in agricultural technology," she says, adding that it also allows the exhibition to form a "past-present-future" closed loop.

As one of China's most prominent contemporary artists, Cao's projects have always centered on the human condition amid technological transformation throughout her more than two-decade-long career.

Born in Guangzhou, a prosperous port city and manufacturing hub that has significantly fueled China's economic growth since the reform and opening-up in 1978, Cao has always maintained a keen interest in emerging trends and technologies. The abundant factories in Guangzhou and its surrounding cities solidified the country's reputation as the "world's factory" in the 2000s. As a result, factories and workers frequently became central themes in her early works.

From 2005 to 2006, Cao spent six months working at a light bulb factory in Foshan, a city about 40 kilometers from her hometown. During this time, she created her iconic film, Whose Utopia, which focuses on the lives of workers on the factory's assembly line.

In 2007, long before virtual reality, the metaverse, and digital platforms became mainstream some 20 years later, Cao began experimenting with the virtual world through her video project, Second Life. This forward-thinking endeavor highlighted the possibilities of virtual spaces, even as most people were still unfamiliar with the concept of VR. Her creativity culminated in the RMB City series, where she built an online virtual metropolis.

From 2016 onward, Cao integrated virtual and augmented reality elements into several of her works, such as designing an art car for BMW and creating her sci-fi film Nova.

In 2018, Cao ventured into futuristic storytelling with her fictional film Asia One, which unfolds a love story set in an automated warehouse named Asia No 1, built by e-commerce giant JD.

Interestingly, this time her inspiration to explore smart agriculture also came from a company in her hometown — an agricultural robotics firm based in Guangzhou, Guangdong's capital. Much as the factories in her hometown inspired her acclaimed work Whose Utopia two decades ago, this local company, XAG, again sparked her creativity.

"In 2021, I returned to Guangzhou. A friend introduced me to a local company that develops agricultural drones, and after learning more about them, I found the subject incredibly intriguing," she says.

"In the past, China was known as the world's factory, with Guangdong focused on low-cost processing and manufacturing for export. But today, 20 years later, China has shifted to independent innovation and exporting technology. Agricultural drones are a prime example of such progress. This transformation in the industry provided me the perfect entry point for my creative work."

Contact the writer at dengzhangyu@chinadaily.com.cn