HYPERLUCID
Training to live in a new reality
Curated by: Domenico Quaranta
For: Prague Biennale 4
Karlin Hall, Thamova 8 - Praga 8
May 14 - July 26, 2009
Directors and General Curators: Helena Kontova and Giancarlo Politi
General Editor / Curatorial Advisor: Nicola Trezzi
Artists: Alterazioni Video; Gazira Babeli; Shane Hope; Miltos Manetas; Gerhard Mantz; Eva and Franco Mattes; UBERMORGEN.COM; Damon Zucconi.
CONCEPT. Reality is not the one we were used to anymore. Media infiltrate it more and more, and fill up our dreams, which usually come when our eyes are open. Wide open. In the frame of ÒExpanded PaintingÓ, H Y P E R L U C I D is an exhibition collecting works born on the invisible edge between two different levels of reality (apparent reality and media reality), and documenting the continuous trespassing from one level to the other. The walls in between are more and more porous, and sometimes even the more lucid gaze can't help but wonder which level of reality it is looking at in a particular moment. All of us had this feeling, in front of 9/11 pictures. Media don't produce simulacra anymore: they produce events, history, life. They overwhelm us with icons, brands, pixellated images of tortures, wars, outrages. The hardest fight happens there. They help us to construct new levels of reality, both abstract and hyperreal, and to get used to them. Finally, videogames are the places of our training: there, through more and more complex social and narrative dynamics, and through a photorealism which even overcomes our playing needs, we forget how to recognize simulation, and we exercise our brain for the next step: the one in which, between tangible reality, simulated reality and media reality there are no barriers anymore, but only the sheets, translucent and easy to pass through, of a chinese shadows theater. We took the last train to the world of Perky Pat, and there is no way to come back. H Y P E R L U C I D doesn't collects paintings. Here, painting is not a medium, but a cultural frame, a context of reference for the new generation of the image makers. Alterazioni Video, Gazira Babeli, Shane Hope, Miltos Manetas, Gerhard Mantz, Eva and Franco Mattes, UBERMORGEN.COM and Damon Zucconi, no longer paint: they shoot, they manipulate, they code, they make scripts, sometimes they fight with other virtual characters. Yet, in the end, they produce images.
PRAGUE BIENNALE:
List of Artists & Exhibitions (pdf)
HYPERLUCID
Images (left click on the image for the high resolution):
Alterazioni Video, 522146150912, 2007. Embroidery rayon on linen, 93,5 x 96 cm - 36.8 x 37.8 in. Courtesy Fabio Paris Art Gallery, Brescia.
Gazira Babeli, GAZ OF THE DESERT - painted d'aprŽs Delacroix, 2008. Lambda prints, 123 x 123 cm. Courtesy Fabio Paris Art Gallery.
Shane Hope, Kute Komputronium Kiddies, posted two thousand sixty whenever after. Outsourced oil on canvas, 244 x 244 cm. Courtesy Project Gentili, Prato.
Miltos Manetas, Spore drawing, Vibracolour print on superglossy paper, 40 x60 inches, 2008. Courtesy the artist.
Gerhard Mantz, The left Hand of Darkness, 2008. Ink on canvas, 100 x 190 cm, edition of 3 and 1 A/P in 60 x100cm. Courtesy DAM, Berlin.
Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORG, I'm still here, 2008. Digital print on canvas, 91,4 x 146,2 cm. Courtesy Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India.
Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORG, MMMM, 2008. Resin, metal, plastic, colors, pigments, 90 x 60 x 100 cm. Courtesy the artists.
UBERMORGEN.COM, Superenhanced Familiarization: S1E1, S1E3, S1E2, S1E4, 2009. Inkjet on Paper, 55x55cm, Courtesy Fabio Paris Art Gallery, Brescia.
Damon Zucconi, Morris Louis; Dalet Kaf (Horizontal blur), 2008. Digital print, 181.6 x 127.8 cm, edition of 3. Courtesy Project Gentili, Prato