group exhibition 25th October – 25th November 2018 at Yelo House, Babgkok
curated and essay by Margaret Wu
‘The shape of the invisible, the rhythm of the unspeakable, the dimension of humanity’ explores the human mental state under an increasingly connected environment, and the effects of the all-surrounding, all-surveilled sensorium on our sense of self and identity. The artists in this exhibition respond to these evolving conditions in a number of ways, from psychoanalytical manifestations to narrative appropriations, to critical interrogations and to poetic statements. This exhibition also invites the performance artist to join in on the exploration through the bodily translation.
This exhibition pursues numerous lines of inquiry, asking questions such as: is there any mutation on the self and subjecthood when the boundaries between being seen and seeing, the private and public, and the real and virtual are blurred in the technological society? Furthermore, what are the effects on the artist’s practices and the role of art from this structural change? What is the current role of objecthood and fetishism in a world full of plural and fluid perspectives?
Unlike most of the western counterparties using new media to tap the potential of mutated technological identifications, the exhibited artists in this exhibition purposively employ the physically tangible mediums in their artistic approaches, such as embroidery, sculpture, painting and text, to intuitively embrace and interpret the vulnerability of humans in the immaterial world of digital media. They recognise the socio-cultural impacts of the ubiquitous networking, and in doing so reveal the beautiful struggle for human’s corporeal existence and their beliefs in raw humanity.
The elongated title of the exhibition and the laborious process behind each work evidently serves to emphasise our unyielding human presence that is being challenged by the fleeting nature of cyber-hallucination. The artworks in this exhibition signify the collective anxiety and ambivalence toward our personal and social identities in technology’s saturation.