Stumbling Through the Uncanny Valley Sculpture and Self in the Age of Computer Generated Imagery (Israel, Tel Aviv)
13.7.2019 - 7.9.2019
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Photo: Ruth Patir, Marry, Fuck, Kill, 2019.
Kim? Contemporary Art Centre together with CCA – Centre for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv is pleased to present “Stumbling Through the Uncanny Valley: Sculpture and Self in the Age of Computer Generated Imagery”, a group exhibition spanning the entire building of CCA, Tel Aviv, including contributions by Cory Arcangel, Aleksandra Domanović, Carmi Dror, Adi Fluman, Santa France, Nimrod Gershuni, Nir Harel, Jakub Jansa and Karolína Juříková, Haviv Kaptzon, Ronnie Karfiol, Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Daniel Landau in collaboration with Maya Magnat, Oliver Laric, Alicia Mersy, nabbteeri, Katja Novitskova, Pakui Hardware, Eva Papamargariti, Ruth Patir, Andrea Pekárková, Heather Phillipson, Seth Price, Jon Rafman, Elinor Salomon, Jacolby Satterwhite, Miri Segal, Timur Si-Qin, Jasmin Vardi, Andrew Norman Wilson, and Lu Yang.
The starting point of the exhibition is the fact that today we spend so much time looking at screens that show us images created by computers rather than cameras or humans. This new aesthetic filters through our daily lives and gives form to a new mode of visual representation. Following thesepremises, the exhibition examines the boundaries of this phenomenon through the work of 30 pioneering artists from around the globe. Furthermore, the exhibition title refers to the term “The uncanny valley,” that was coined in the 1970s to describe the unsettling feeling when androids (humanoid robots) or audio / visual representations of people closely resemble humans, but are not fully realistic or convincing. This dissonance is found today in computer-generated imagery (CGI) that now form our visual world and artists today are responding to and deconstructing the resultant visual landscape.
The exhibition is conceived as a major spotlight on this medium shift, drawing inspiration for the stream of “Post-Internet Art.” “Post-Internet” does not mean a world after the Internet, but rather work being made in a widely networked world and focusing on the visual culture that is its byproduct, a culture that has become more and more globalized and connected, bringing together artists from different regions of the world, from Asia to Central Europe, from the Middle East to Baltic Countries. These artists are not only producing art with new tools, they are looking deeply at a new world order in which synthetic images make up a large part of what we take in. In this world, mediated by technology, the physical and the virtual merge, and the Internet complicates how the self and the other meet.
“Stumbling Through the Uncanny Valley: Sculpture and Self in the Age of Computer Generated Imagery” is curated by Chen Tamir and is accompanied by a public program including roundtables, performances, and curator’s tours. Full information about the public program can be found here.
A new iteration of this project will be held at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre in Riga under the title “For a Nervous Spirit on a Dance Floor (Faktura in the Age of Post Optical.)” The exhibition will be presented in 2020 and will be curated by Zane Onckule.
Supported by: Michelle Pollak, the Ostrovsky Family Fund (OFF), ifa –Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and Taboola; additional support has been provided by Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, the State Culture Capital Foundation, Riga City Council, Gil Brandes, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Lithuanian Culture Institute, Bundeskanzleramt – the Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Chancel lery of Austria, the Yehoshua Rabinovich Foundat ion for the Arts, Tel Aviv, the Czech Center in Tel Aviv and Smartwings.