"Mannered Attitude" Exhibition
SOLOWAY
This event has ended.
"Imagine a person, considered very smart, carefully plans on a certain day, and in a certain moment, to start singing backwards and dancing around for a limited time in the center of town. Or imagine another person, who is very reasonable and incredibly smart, carefully plans to fly back and forth between two cities, writing just one word in each city, in order to complete a sentence.
I could not find a better name to describe what I had in mind, and what these great video pieces are for me, than "Mannered Attitude." Attitude describes the position: a playful act that is foreign to the context. Mannered behavior tells how considered it is; the means of freedom; and the opportunity to rebel within the roles of the culture game.
The idea behind this group of works is derived from the post-Brechtian position and circles around Winicote's "False Self" (as a cultural phenomena rather than "personal disorder"). The basic assumption is that we all live in a performative consumptive culture, where knowledge is an "open edge" structure. In this structure of the real, the positive idea of modernity is rapidly being lost to irritating new trends. The invention of our selves is harder every day. These inventions, and our creativity, are exhausted from attempts to cover our own voids. We complete and stretch ourselves through consumption and change appearances throughout our short shelf lives.
Rather than trying to replace the passing trends this "Mannered Attitude" accepts the present as real. It assumes that what is considered false and sick is true. There is nothing beyond our present experience and time stretches unlimitedly and horizontally. Heaven is a faded history in an exotic postcard and hell is a muscle car painted black with flames. By accepting the limits of knowledge, and rejecting the idea of progress, the order of things can slow down to the point where spontaneous interaction is really possible.
To some, it might sound like a pessimist's proposal, but the opposite is true. These small fragments of controlled actions are excerpts of freedom beyond reason: like a momentary performance in streets full of people, a radical upside-down TV insertion, or an interrupted musical video that simply makes you love. For me these videos suggest freedom, a position of joy, and a monumental momentary lapse of emotion."
Media
Schedule
from October 27, 2012 to October 28, 2012
Opening Reception on 2012-10-27 from 18:00 to 20:00