Conversations with Conversations 2012
We are all cognisant to the experience of
entering a gallery or museum; that sense of reverence that resonates the moment
you walk through the door. Consciously or not we are aware of the hegemonic
status the gallery has over a given audience, especially when representing
contemporary art culture. The way in
which a work of art is viewed in a gallery is quite different to the way art is
viewed outside of that context, the way art work is placed in a gallery is
usually quite specific and different aesthetic elements can be seen as
signifiers of the sophistication or cultural value of the work displayed. There
is an imbalance between the new modernity in which contemporary art is
practiced and the type of spaces in which that work is displayed. Of course this
does not mean that efforts are not being made by the curatorial hierarchy, to
change and adapt the way contemporary art relates to the spaces within which it
is exhibited. But as technology advances it seems that the white cubed walls of
the gallery have become a constraint rather than an access point for artists to
exhibit their work.
Technology and its increasing advancement
had a profound effect on the way we consume contemporary art on a daily basis. We
as a contemporary art audience are faced with difficult questions on the use
and validity of technology as a device for consuming this culture. Today we are
in a constant state of turned on-ness with smart phone technology and social
media, we are constantly available and information is accessible to us twenty
four hours a day, out of this turned on state grows communities of people
seeking similar information. This sense of community the internet provides
ensures that private property and privacy law cannot keep up with the
technologies which seek to undermine it. Technologies control the way we
understand the world in which we in habit, technology is accumulative in nature
and each piece of technology is in a constant state of flux.
Through this
exhibition we hope to explore how websites like Flickr or tumblr, create conversations
and affirmate already existing ideas or communities. Social networking and file
sharing sites like these construct an entirely new world not merely mimic our
world or make it better, we enter a space rather like that coined by Michel Foucault in his essay des spaces
autres these spaces are heterotopia… where we defer our identities and create
new more acceptable ones. There are six main principles of heterotopia:
1. norms of
behaviour are suspended (think of avatars and the way some people hide behind
them in order to present a certain view of themselves), 2. They have a precise function and comment on
the society in which they exist, 3. Juxtapose several real spaces at once, 4.
They are linked to splices of time (accumulative and transitory) 5. Have a
system of opening and closing, are not freely accessible (passwords, secondary
questions in order to sign into account), 6.have a function relation to the
rest of space.
So as
contemporary art consumers how best do we use such technology. Think of the
introduction of the train or the advent of fire and how this changed the world
and how we used other technologies to coincide with this new technology. We use technology as an extension of our own
being. Be it a pen or a smart phone, they each have a precise function and we
used them primarily for this function. Flickr and tumblr in essence are
socially orientated dialogical forms of communication, through the collation of
communities based around the collection and sharing of photography they create
a new format in which we can view, assess, comment and follow an artist’s work.
This in many ways, to a certain type of audience (perhaps the lion’s share of
the wider audience) allows them to view works of art and explore art practices
without ever entering the gallery space at all. This brings forth the question;
in this world of mass media and technology do we need the gallery at all?
It is our
intention to bring the two worlds together, to comment on the collision of
these two forms of exhibiting. Bringing the formal elements of a gallery show,
to works of art that have not been created to be displayed in that format. Using
and abusing the limits of community based technologies, in order to portray the
types of communities which form around a particular artist or methodology…
No comments:
Post a Comment