Dreams of Progress video art exhibition
Foreword
What means Progress nowadays? Who defines it? What is our verdict on past and present visions of the future? After having believed in so many utopias, and having been so close to so many dystopias, do we still want to imagine an ideal future? Can we? The Dreams of Progress exhibition intends to introduce the visitor to these questions by screening eleven videos from corporations and artists.
The first set of videos explore some of the utopias envisioned by corporations from the 40s until now. They offer an insight into the social values of their time: efficiency, order, technology, consumerism, knowledge, sustainability and globalisation to list only few of them. In their form, the videos are the natural descendants of utopian visions from authors such as Thomas More and Aldous Huxley. However, they each offer a unique solution for the future, radically new or in continuity of past ideals.
The second set of videos are by emerging video artists from around the world. Some of artists describe their own vision of the future, others express their perspective on the ambivalent notion of Progress. Rather than reaching a consensus, their videos put forward a wide range of perspectives, from nostalgia to optimism, cynicism to embracement. The videos give a glimpse at how the current Western generation put in perspective ‘Progress’ since their childhood, and how they live it today.
Both sets are distributed on five screens with the intention of exploring the dialogue between the videos. The visitor is asked to make his own judgement on whether what he sees is propaganda lead by self interest, or a genuine proposition for a better future; if the videos advocate ‘Progress’ or instead distance themselves from such beliefs.
The exhibition does not provide any concrete answers, but instead intends to place the ideas of Utopia and Progress at the centre stage of the social debate. The world needs more than ever to meditate on its course, in what some describe as a profound global crisis, economical, environmental and ideological. Utopias and visionaries tend paradoxically to emerge in the least favourable circumstances. For some, they testify on the capacity that has humanity to choose itself until its most unlikely destiny. For others, they are a chronicle disease.
Tags: art, Dreams of Progress, exhibition, future, progress, utopia, video
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