Artists Sarah Abu Abdallah, Juliette Bonneviot, Chris Dorland, Celine Gillain, Peter Nagy, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Adriana Ramic, Ariane Schick, Barbara Westermann
Venue Super Dakota, Brussels
The exhibition aims to engage in a dialog on culture, politics, environmental issues and technologies. It features works by:
Sarah Abu Abdallah (b.1990, Saudi Arabia), Juliette Bonneviot (b.1983, France), Chris Dorland (b.1978, Canada), Celine Gillain (Belgium), Peter Nagy (b.1959, USA), !Mediengruppe Bitnik (Switzerland), Jaakko Pallasvuo (b.1987, Finland), Adriana Ramic (1989, USA), Ariane Schick (b.1984, UK), Barbara Westermann (1958, Germany).
(DYS)-TROPISM, at it’s core, reveals and reacts to the failure of technology as a conduit for liberation, becoming instead one of captivity or imprisonment. Throughout the exhibition, the work creates an atmosphere of tension and unease, depicting the products and byproducts of technological intervention: the infinite chasm of “connectivity” by way of iPhone the machine as collaborator, and the random products purchased by a bot on the deep web. Issues surrounding environmentalism, politics, language, and other social aspects of our insular consumer culture are present in the work, ranging from video to painting to sculpture to quilting. When navigating (DYS)-TROPISM this tension holds the viewer throughout, but a sense of hope reveals itself as it is investigated further. The collaborative nature of connectivity is seen in the periphery, as well as the ability for this collaboration to create change in the crisis-based economy we live.
