Olaf Breuning (2015) Text Butt [Wallpaper on MDF panel]
Currently on show at the Whitechapel Gallery, London is Electronic Superhighway 2016-1966, an exhibition exploring the relationship between art and the Internet over five decades displaying work by over 70 artists. You enter the exhibition to encounter some immediately cheeky
curation (no really, have you seen Olaf Breuning’s Text Butt ?) Anyway moving on from the butt of a bad joke the
exhibition is simply saturated with information, much like the Internet itself.
The internet is said to be a playground full of virtual
experiences, it is therefore no surprise to see that the bulk of the exhibition
is governed by screens (I wouldn’t want the Whitechapel’s electricity bill).
Varying from ultra flatscreen super-duper LED marvels to old-school CRT
monitors visitors to the exhibition are still seen bending their bodies around
these screens.
Eva and Franco Mattes (2010) My Generation [Video collage, broken computer]
Collaged with different dialogues a queer humour subsumed
the main gallery space as the exhibition is percolated with a totalitarian
theme. We have become absorbed by the Internet and the exhibition serves as a
reminder of how the machines that exist to serve us could in years to come
exist to be served by us but enough of the 1984 references #YOLO.
Jonas Lund’s work VIP
(Viewer Improved Painting), (2014) could be seen to take on Philosopher Jacques
Rancière’s The Emancipated Spectator
with a twist. According to the gallery paratext; “In this two-monitor
installation a gaze tracking camera records what screen the viewer looks at.
Slowly, it iterates different compositions over time, choosing optimal colour
based on the viewer’s preference.” Lund seems to literally display the viewer’s
emancipation as the viewer has the capacity to associate or disassociate
themselves with the mimetic work through the simple act of looking away. If you
want to switch off Lund’s work then look away to avoid an eye opening
experience. The viewer has the capacity to extend themselves beyond the binary
active/passive boundaries of engagement with the work.
Jonas Lund (2014) VIP (Viewer Improved Painting) [Self-optimising digital painting, 50" monitor TV, custom metal frame, gaze-tracking camera]
If interpreted through the lens of Guy Debord’s text The Society of the Spectacle then Lund’s
VIP (Viewer Improved Painting) is
capable of being a work which transcends the virtual/actual binary:
5
The spectacle cannot be understood either as a deliberate distortion of
the visual world or as a product of the technology of the mass dissemination of
images. It is far better viewed as a weltanschauung that has been actualized,
translated into the material realm a world view transformed into an
objective force.
(Debord, 1994, p.5)
The viewer’s gaze and weltanschauung is distracted and
becomes introverted as our gaze and apprehension of the world is reflected back
on us, much like that of a traditional screen. Our gaze transforms the through
the actualisation of the gaze into the virtual our world view is transformed.
Through into the next gallery Harun Farocki’s work Parallel I-IV, (2012-14) is a six screen
(yes six screen) video installation which allegedly offers an immersive meditation on how images are
created and experienced. Farocki’s projectors float with the dissident
qualities of drones hanging in a void of dark space, perhaps to allude to the
negative space of the dark net.
Harun Farocki (2012-14) Parallel I-IV [Six-screen video installation]
Anywho before you float away I’ll wrap things up here as
like the Internet I could hyperlink may way through and discuss these works to
infinity and beyond but before you click off this page I’ll leave you with some
advice to take with you on your Internet travels; be sure to look left and
right before clicking your way through the Information Superhighway.
Debord, G. (1994) The
Society of the spectacle. London: Zone Books, p.5
No comments:
Post a comment