Chain Reaction
11 - 14 September 2008
The exhibition of the Upgrade! International network of gatherings concerning art, technology and culture.
Exhibited in: September, 2009 - Museum of the City of Skopje, Macedonia
Program coordinator: Elena Veljanovska
Co-curators of the exhibition: Kyd Campbell, Jo Anne Green, Elena Veljanovska, Basak Senova, Mushon Zer Aviv, Luis Silva, Maja Ciric, Yael Kanarek, Marika Dermineur.
Artists: Cezanne Charles, John Marshall, Martha Carrer Cruz Gabriel, Yael Kanarek, D.A.L., Sean Arden, Grupo Poeticias Digitais, Antoine Schmitt, RYbN, Silvia Laurentiz, Santiago Ortiz Herrera, Giselle Beiguelman, Kire Trajkovski, Natasa Teofilovic, Tegan Bristow, Erhan Muratoglu, Tobias c.van Veen, CADA, Danilo Mandic, Paul Hertz, Roch Forowiz.
The concept behind the Chain Reaction project appeared simple at first glance: to demonstrate and challenge development, innovation and reflection of new media art amongst an international, multicultural crowd in Skopje, Macedonia.
The mechanisms of staging the exhibition Chain Reaction and its discursive sphere were generated from the horizontal structure of the Upgrade! International network, which replaces the vertically integrated hierarchies of the past dominant forms of curatorial practice that aimed to produce knowledge about the local context on the international level. It is a result of a bottom-up curatorial approach, meaning that the works have been selected and proposed by peers around the globe.
This exhibition shows numerous current tendencies in the use of hardware and software developments for artistic means. The artists presented here are the emergent creative force on the international new media scene. Some of the works have been part of other exhibitions and festivals, and others have been created exclusively for this event. A number of repeated tendencies can in fact be seen poetically and in some cases very literally in the artworks themselves. In analyzing the program we have discovered the following most prominent tendencies:
- critiques of public surveillance and privacy
- a desire to concretely be located within virtual space
- impressing nostalgia and familiarity onto virtual spaces and objects
- denouncing the possibility of proximity within technologically advanced communication environments
- observing the actual capabilities for communication within virtual environments
- exploring computers/machines as expressive beings
One of the dominant principles that have emerged in this collection of works is the blurring of the boundaries between art, cultures, technology and the physical surroundings. This blurring is not about fading out, it is about illuminating and distributing new kinds of practices. It is about multiple modes of participating, navigating and deconstructing.
So, the best way to describe that is to mention the net art piece Object of Desire by Yael Kanarek, the initiator of the Upgrade! International that consists of fifteen diary entries from four different cities. Or, to mention the multimedia work Lightningstone by GRUPO POÉTICAS DIGITAIS that plays with inscriptions from the Bible, the Arabian Nights, a songbook and books about natural history, from explorers, soldiers, lovers and other authors. The installation S.H.E. by Nataša Teofilović plays with the boundaries of virtual and real space, but also challenges fixed gender roles.
Having this in mind, Chain Reaction should not be regarded as a mere absorption of information and materials from different nodes of the Upgrade! network, that should be analyzed and interpreted individually. It is also opening up a space of theoretical reflection and speculation. Especially if we consider that it takes place parallel to a development which Katerina Kolozova, the Macedonian theoretician, identified with the positive political project of Southeast Europe, as an attempt to overcome the emotion-laden legacy of the “Balkans” of our misconception. This event should thus be evaluated by its potential to actively produce a different kind of knowledge about the social, political and economic repositioning in a global landscape of rapid change.
While previous curatorial practices critically referenced political events in a post-communist setting, Chain Reaction is a point of access to a different kind of politics as a mode of being. It is an actualization of politics based on the dispersed horizontal distribution of power. The creativity embedded in these artworks, the interactive, relational and participatory nature of the works, they all introduce new possibilities and chart processes and relations within a different political frame.
Chain Reaction has the potential for transformation and for crossover into the new cultural space created by the Upgrade! community. The tendencies that can be read from this self-assembled show give us an insight into the global complexity of the 21st century by introducing more dynamic orders of visibility. Simultaneously, they stand for a multitude of new possibilities for a different society.
Chain Reaction is a statement about shared beliefs that help us to overcome the polarities, to abandon the hegemonic view and forget about the reflection in dichotomies. But, also this event is about finding a way of allowing the local context to act as an equal global partner. Hopefully, this organic project will provoke a sequence of reactions where reactive products or by-products will cause additional similar reactions to take place somewhere else.
Maja Ciric/ Upgrade! Belgrade; Elena Veljanovska/ Upgrade! Skopje
Co-curators of the exhibition: Kyd Campbell, Jo Anne Green, Elena Veljanovska, Basak Senova, Mushon Zer Aviv, Luis Silva, Maja Ciric, Yael Kanarek, Marika Dermineur.
Artists: Cezanne Charles, John Marshall, Martha Carrer Cruz Gabriel, Yael Kanarek, D.A.L., Sean Arden, Grupo Poeticias Digitais, Antoine Schmitt, RYbN, Silvia Laurentiz, Santiago Ortiz Herrera, Giselle Beiguelman, Kire Trajkovski, Natasa Teofilovic, Tegan Bristow, Erhan Muratoglu, Tobias c.van Veen, CADA, Danilo Mandic, Paul Hertz, Roch Forowiz.
The concept behind the Chain Reaction project appeared simple at first glance: to demonstrate and challenge development, innovation and reflection of new media art amongst an international, multicultural crowd in Skopje, Macedonia.
The mechanisms of staging the exhibition Chain Reaction and its discursive sphere were generated from the horizontal structure of the Upgrade! International network, which replaces the vertically integrated hierarchies of the past dominant forms of curatorial practice that aimed to produce knowledge about the local context on the international level. It is a result of a bottom-up curatorial approach, meaning that the works have been selected and proposed by peers around the globe.
This exhibition shows numerous current tendencies in the use of hardware and software developments for artistic means. The artists presented here are the emergent creative force on the international new media scene. Some of the works have been part of other exhibitions and festivals, and others have been created exclusively for this event. A number of repeated tendencies can in fact be seen poetically and in some cases very literally in the artworks themselves. In analyzing the program we have discovered the following most prominent tendencies:
- critiques of public surveillance and privacy
- a desire to concretely be located within virtual space
- impressing nostalgia and familiarity onto virtual spaces and objects
- denouncing the possibility of proximity within technologically advanced communication environments
- observing the actual capabilities for communication within virtual environments
- exploring computers/machines as expressive beings
One of the dominant principles that have emerged in this collection of works is the blurring of the boundaries between art, cultures, technology and the physical surroundings. This blurring is not about fading out, it is about illuminating and distributing new kinds of practices. It is about multiple modes of participating, navigating and deconstructing.
So, the best way to describe that is to mention the net art piece Object of Desire by Yael Kanarek, the initiator of the Upgrade! International that consists of fifteen diary entries from four different cities. Or, to mention the multimedia work Lightningstone by GRUPO POÉTICAS DIGITAIS that plays with inscriptions from the Bible, the Arabian Nights, a songbook and books about natural history, from explorers, soldiers, lovers and other authors. The installation S.H.E. by Nataša Teofilović plays with the boundaries of virtual and real space, but also challenges fixed gender roles.
Having this in mind, Chain Reaction should not be regarded as a mere absorption of information and materials from different nodes of the Upgrade! network, that should be analyzed and interpreted individually. It is also opening up a space of theoretical reflection and speculation. Especially if we consider that it takes place parallel to a development which Katerina Kolozova, the Macedonian theoretician, identified with the positive political project of Southeast Europe, as an attempt to overcome the emotion-laden legacy of the “Balkans” of our misconception. This event should thus be evaluated by its potential to actively produce a different kind of knowledge about the social, political and economic repositioning in a global landscape of rapid change.
While previous curatorial practices critically referenced political events in a post-communist setting, Chain Reaction is a point of access to a different kind of politics as a mode of being. It is an actualization of politics based on the dispersed horizontal distribution of power. The creativity embedded in these artworks, the interactive, relational and participatory nature of the works, they all introduce new possibilities and chart processes and relations within a different political frame.
Chain Reaction has the potential for transformation and for crossover into the new cultural space created by the Upgrade! community. The tendencies that can be read from this self-assembled show give us an insight into the global complexity of the 21st century by introducing more dynamic orders of visibility. Simultaneously, they stand for a multitude of new possibilities for a different society.
Chain Reaction is a statement about shared beliefs that help us to overcome the polarities, to abandon the hegemonic view and forget about the reflection in dichotomies. But, also this event is about finding a way of allowing the local context to act as an equal global partner. Hopefully, this organic project will provoke a sequence of reactions where reactive products or by-products will cause additional similar reactions to take place somewhere else.
Maja Ciric/ Upgrade! Belgrade; Elena Veljanovska/ Upgrade! Skopje