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Interaction between culture and technology with “Networking the Unseen” at the Villa Merkel in Esslingen am Neckar

By 2018-01-31EXHIBITION, GERMANY

Aram Bartholl - "0,16", at "Hello World!" Kasseler Kunstverein, 2013

Barbara Herold & Florian Huth - "Void (Woodlands)", 2016

Gretta Louw - "Future, Present, Desert", 2016

Until March 4th, 2018, the Villa Merkel presents « Networking the Unseen » in Esslingen am Neckar, an exhibition curated by Gretta Louw that brings together works from contemporary Indigenous and Australian artists with works by media and digital artists from the European scene.

« Networking the Unseen » is an exhibition that goes through the disparate culturally, geographically, and socially dependent frameworks visible in the works, the two-way interaction between culture and technology is brought into focus.

In this historical moment of intense, rapid, and widespread transformation as a result of digitalisation, the exhibition presents artists who are grappling with the ramifications of advancing technologies on cultural traditions, nature, art, the individual, and the society within which they live. « Networking the Unseen » achieves an unusual breadth of perspective on a set of issues that, after all, affects every community around the world today. The exhibition takes stock of the extent of cultural change and proposes strategies for a reorientation of our relationship to technology.

« 0,16 » is a light installation by Aram Bartholl in which the shadows of a passer-by is transformed into ‘pixels’. In this simple way, the artist renders tangible the pixels found in the world of digital communications. « VOID (Woodlands) » by Barbara Herold & Florian Huth is a computer-generated idealized landscape from which all traces of civilization and individuals have been eliminated, shifting the focus to the setting, the natural scene. The work allows for a virtual experience of nature, the “hyper”-realistic and thoroughly meaningless space of an idyll: illusion, dream destination, utopian space, scene of quiet and contemplation.

Different events accompany the Villa Merkel’s project during the runtime of the exhibition.

Artists : Nora Al-Badri & Jan Nikolai Nelles (D), Brook Andrew (AUS), Aram Bartholl (D/NL), Neil Jupurrurla Cook (AUS), Michael Erglis (AUS), Jenny Fraser (AUS), Barbara Herold & Florian Huth (D), Lily Hibberd (AUS), Agnes Jänsch (D), Gretta Louw (D/AUS), Owen Mundy (USA), Katrin Petroschkat (D), plan b (D/GB), Anahita Razmi (D), Curtis Taylor (AUS), Addie Wagenknecht (A/USA), Nine Yamamoto-Masson (F/J) und aus dem Warnayaka Art Centre (AUS).

More information here