Underskog

Opening hours:

19.-27. mai:

Sat. - Sun. 12-17 (opening Sat.)
Tue. – Wed. 12-17
Thu. – Fri. 12-18
Sat. – Sun. 12-18

Compression of Man

1. Language of the Obsolete (2012)
   
   

A small group of insiders conspire together. Technical remarks can be heard over a constant hum, resembling tropical ambience. They are very concerned about shaping an object that is not yet present. It is the absence of a dimension or an idea. There is a brief glimpse of a knife, cables, circuits and ports.

There is a strong dramaturgy to their rituals, like believers playing out a strict, scripted set of actions. They gather round their curiosity and affection for the technological, combining their intellects to construct something greater than themselves. They elude conflation by delving into an enclosed experience.

Their mission is to reach out from an intimate social environment and retreive a subjective visual record, using solely the high-end of the image hierarchy as a buffer, with full knowledge of the consequences and corruption. Any documentation would be inherently flawed, extracting only some parts of a whole — using idioms, while omitting the grammar. They employ banal conventions in retelling relationships between technology and people. They organize diverse and dissonant elements in a dynamic that contracts.

They are torn between a media-constructed paranoia and the comfort of the fictitious adventure — the presence of technology was lost in science fiction. It dissolved into an external image-space, one that co-exists as a contemporary and a distant memory. It represents a contemplative comfort-zone, turning to the realm of the private dream. This is the forensic scene. This is the place to investigate. The recurring narratives are reaching for this space, through the alienation of the familiar, by the means of forgotten devices. Visibility is now the language of the obsolete.

This exhibition is part of 20 MA Exhibitions, see kunstakademiet.no and kunstnerneshus.no