After 25 years of the World Wide Web it has become commonplace that our life also happens in digital communication spaces. But unease spreads in this digital life. While we're using products by Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook and find them useful and indispensable, we've become aware of the dominance of such big players. Their services form our thoughts and commodify the ideas of frienship and exchange. We do not surf the wild web anymore, but are fed with feeds, receiving more and more of the same, based on algorithmic extrapolations of our preferences. With the social media account we rent services, which we pay with our data and attention. With Edward Snowden's disclosures awareness on the excessive government-surveillence and their link to private actors has also reached a broader public.
Since the beginning of the web, artists have built their own spaces and channels there. They have created artworks that reacted to commodification and restrictions in a critical way. The exhibition presents works from over 30 artists and collectives tackling these topics, raising awareness to the unease, showing its causes or possibilitites of an escape from it.
Artists:
Aram Bartholl, Zach Blas & Jemima Wyman, James Bridle, Harm van den Dorpel, F.A.T. Lab († 2015), Olga Fedorova, Cao Fei, Elisa Giardina Papa, Félicien Goguey, Benjamin Grosser, Hackteria, Adam Harvey, JODI, Christoph Wachter & Mathias Jud, Olia Lialina, Silvio Lorusso & Sebastian Schmieg, DISNOVATION.ORG, Joana Moll & Cédric Parizot, The Mycological Twist – Leslie Kulesh / Eloïse Bonneviot / Anne de Boer, Julian Oliver, Trevor Paglen, Tabita Rezaire, RYBN, Gordan Savičić & Bengt Sjölén, Lasse Scherffig, Erica Scourti, Yinan Song, Peter Sunde, Maddy Varner, Angela Washko, Amy Suo Wu.
Curated by Raffael Dörig, director Kunsthaus Langenthal, Domenico Quaranta and Fabio Paris, LINK Art Center, Brescia. In cooperation with Espace Multimédia Gantner, Bourogne.
Langenthal
Kunsthaus Langenthal
Escaping the Digital Unease
August 31 – November 12, 2017
