Legends and introduction to the Dreams of Progress exhibition

Corporate visions of the future

What to tell the visitor? Should I present him or her with my analysis of the videos or with descriptions from the artists? How much should I justify the curation of the exhibition? How much should he be free to discover his own interpretation of the videos and how much guidance does he need?

I decided for this exhibition to only display a short introduction to the theme of the exhibition and to let the artists introduce themselves their videos on short legends. The full description of the exhibition and its theme is on the internet for the visitors who want to know more.

The fact that the exhibition is advertised under the title ‘Dreams of Progress’ already modifies the perception that the visitors will have on the art works. Some of the artists didn’t even have this theme in mind when they made their video.  So, I wanted to equilibrate the exhibition by showing legends from artists themselves, so that visitors can understand the approach of the artist and have their own judgment on the connections between the videos and the theme of Progress.

I also reduced the introduction of the exhibition to an open, relatively short text in order to provide enough freedom for the public to make their own conclusions.  This came at a cost, some visitors did not recognise the connections that I thought were important between the videos. Although my studies on Utopia and Progress are implicitly used in the selection of the videos and the way I introduce the theme, it did not necessary challenge everyone’s perception on the subject. It is after all an elitist approach, giving the visitors a full description of all I intended to say would have been in a sense, more egalitarian, as everyone willing to spend time reading would have learned something. Relying on the capacity of the visitors to make their own analysis increases actually the gap between those having already ideas on the subject and those who don’t. That being said, you don’t need to know anything about Utopia and Progress to feel something looking at the videos. And again, my analysis is on the web, so anyone interested to learn more may do so.

One interesting question that emerged when writing the introduction of the exhibition was how to position the videos compared to literary masterpieces like Utopia by Thomas More or Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I could have connected the videos to previous work and inscribed them in a history of thoughts on Utopia. But I was determined to put the videos at the centre of the stage, rather than any reference. Some  of the video artists have probably not read or seen the previous works on Utopia, but this doesn’t mean they haven’t been influenced indirectly by the impact that the original utopian authors had on culture. I decided thus to add some references in the introduction to acknowledge past works on Utopia but to not draw any causal connection between them and the videos displayed at the exhibition.

Next: Philosophical debate