Posts Tagged ‘curation’

The curatorial practice is not only about setting up the theoretical framework of an exhibition, writing and selecting artefacts. It is also about federating people around a project they understand is beneficial for them. Dreams of Progress was my first exhibition, it gave me the opportunity to gain experience on every front:

The video ‘To New Horizons’ from General Motors (1940) depicts a high-tech world where novelty, efficiency and order are the main measures of success. It doesn’t show any people but only mega-structures and highways. The video is especially interesting because General Motors has been bankrupted just few months ago, after 79 years of activity. Could this be because its vision for the future was wrong or because GM failed to deliver it? After viewing the video, both of these statements could be true. GM already attempted to address environmental concerns, promising cities where people could breath fresh air. Something they didn’t deliver. GM planned to group buildings within a city according to their functions (offices, homes, factories). Constructing cities in this way has led to social disruptions which have been difficult to heal. I would compare the video to ‘Utopia’ by Thomas More, because both utopias are highly planned and focussed on efficiency. They both respond to the need to distribute a limited amount of resource (agriculture, jobs, energy) to everyone. In a sense, they are closer to socialism than contemporary utopias, where third world and poverty are often omitted in the high-tech aspirations for the future. One contradiction to notice in the video is the praise of both novelty and efficiency. By nature, reaching efficiency is a stable equilibrium that doesn’t like novelty, as novelty requires adaptations. A perfectly efficient world doesn’t need novelty.

The “Productivity Vision of 2019” by Microsoft (2009) showcases some telecom technologies as well, 49 years after the vision of At&T.  The format of the video is less patronising; the voice over was omitted and the characters are more subtle. But, has the message really changed? The video doesn’t pretend to be a vision for everyone. It focuses instead on the lives of wealthy upper class people. The productivity of low income workers in 2019 is never addressed. The video  doesn’t try to build new ideals; the 2019 world depicted by Microsoft is grey, globalized and driven by international corporations. My point is that a less directive vision of the future bears both pros and cons. Unlike its predecessors, this video does not attempt to impose ideals; but by not addressing wider issues, they become all the more prominent. The last scene of the video is on the top of a building filled with a garden. The woman is happy enjoying the simple pleasures of nature. But, not everyone can have a garden on the roof of a building in a highly populated city centre. No answer is given as a solution to the problem. Even more worrying, the managers showed on the video don’t seem to enjoy themselves that much. The woman looks at the life of her daughter with nostalgia. Her life seems to be very challenging and submerged by information. However, the Microsoft video encapsulate many contemporary ideals: the world seems to be in peace, as a consequence of economical globalisation probably; it is liberal, cosmopolitan, green and based on information.

“Some things won’t change” by Adam Pelling Deeves [2009] is a great example of how contemporary artists re-appropriate popular culture videos. Pelling Deeves, in his remix of the 1956 video “Design for Dreaming”, modifies the subject and provides different perspectives on the video. In the newer video, the actress Tad Tadlock is the star of the video. She is still seen in the kitchen and in the passenger seat of the car. But unlike the original video, she is the person who drives the story. In the first video, the focus was on technology and cars; the second version highlighted the exhilarating rhythm and the sentence “some things won’t  change” remain the same. Nothing external has been added to the video; but the artist has been able to transform it, providing  a very different, more contemporary ideal: the eternal malice of human nature, the irreducible distinctiveness of people and perplexity related to progress.

Discovery of Magnetic North by Richard Jerousek and Brian Phillips [2007] raises many questions. People and situations filmed are distant from the viewer; they fade away by the television effects, the music and the distant time from when they were shot. Characters have their own stories and emotions, but futuristic buildings and medical imaging are interfering. I have the feeling looking at the video that individuality is dissolved in technology and media. Or maybe is it the time passing by that dissolves the scenes from the 70s; and our attempt to remember them is altered  by the media and dreams of technology from back then. In both cases, the video plays with individuality, memory and technology.

Mardi Gras by Keith Loutit [2009] is part of a series of videos that the artist made using a specific photographic technique. Everything seems small, like in a model city. People are merely figurines. However, Keith Loutit chose light hearted and positive scenes and soundtracks. Mardi Gras in Sydney can only inspire happiness, freedom and liveliness. But seeing it as if it was a model city shows that the event is actually fairly predictable. The public participated by their own choice and they probably enjoyed themselves. It does not make the event appear to be less orchestrated, as though it was part of a big figurine play. Is this an ideal, a planned, conditioned happiness? How much is happiness a sufficient condition for an utopist society? Brave New World* by Aldous Huxley surely proved it isn’t sufficient.