Light, Non-light: Annaïk Lou Pitteloud, David O'Kane, Gabriel Acevedo Velarde, Germaine Kruip, Chung Hee Seung, Koen van den Broek, Liam Gillick, Max Frisinger, Peter Stichbury, Yan Tomaszewski, Yuichi Hirako
Chapter II is pleased to announce a group exhibition, ‘Light, Non-light’, from 17th September to 13th October 2018 in Yeonnam-dong, Seoul, Korea.
Byung-Chul Han discusses this era of excessive media communication, information and consumption in his recent book, The Expulsion of the Other (Die Austreibung Des Anderen, 2017). He mentioned, “Today, perception itself takes the form of ‘Binge Watching’. This refers to the consumption of videos and films without any temporal restrictions. The consumers are continuously offered those films and series that match their taste, and therefore please them. Like consumer livestock, they are fattened with ever-new sameness”. Han cited VOD service as an example showing that digitized media released from time constraints play a role of an instrument of constant excessive information disguised as comfort, rest and satisfaction invading human consciousness, and eventually become a parasite growing into the consciousness as its host.
In the beginning of the 20th century, a limited mode of ‘international news’ emerged due to the advent of an early form of long distance network. Since then, press agencies and broadcasting companies of major powerful nations appeared and oligopolized the market, creating so-called ‘press comments’. The press comments turned into a foundation of public opinions which had a great influence on establishing a direction of policies of local communities, political parties, countries and international organizations. The financial aspects of producing and manufacturing news operated as an impetus leading continuous competition in occupying issues in advance and resolving them under a circumstance of limited spaces and several practical conditions of broadcasting. As this system has readily functioned, it has been possible that consumers have built loose yet broad solidarity towards political-social key issues.
In terms of distributing news, the emergence of the Internet was a critical factor offering radically lower entry barriers for the media industry. The distribution channels of news were restricted to spaces on paper and broadcasting in the past, whereas the current routes are extended to a variety of platforms including Youtube, Podcast and Blog, having drawn dramatically improved speed and processes from production to delivery. Especially, as only a small number of multinational corporations monopolize the market of SNS and various web portals and they meticulously combine an infinite supply of news with advertisement into an association mechanism, excessive production and consumption of information have become the norm; moreover, the value of news, primarily its commercial worth, is decided by the degree of inducement of unspecified individuals’ interests. In result, the number of Facebook ‘Like’ buttons, clicks and re-Tweets has turned into a barometer indicating consumer preferences for certain articles and press companies. For example, the probability that one of the most significant worldwide threats such as global warming or industrial waste are consistently treated as staple subjects in headlines on front-page coverage is not higher than the frequency of dealing with celebrity gossips or private scandals of public figures.
Dissemination of Smart-phones caused the collapse of spatial restriction in the case of approaching information, and therefore every one is able to encounter all the worldwide news in hands. This unlimited accessibility of news also indicates a situation where people are exposed without any protection in the midst of the overflow of news, instead of allowing them to acquire and apply only appropriate and useful information. News is no longer a window for gaining information that contributes to the prosperity of individual’s life and community; it is now a target of entertainment which is endlessly consumed and easily discharged.
The exhibition, ‘Light, Non-light’, was initiated from a question—‘can we still remember the news which made us amazed and drew our attention a month or a week ago?’ In addition, another curiosity was brought up, ‘even though the word, ‘Globalization’, is familiar to members of every society, can news which is crucial to members of one society arouse the other society’s members’ empathy?’ The artists who attend this exhibition were asked to, 1) select one of the media they can ordinarily come across and read an article that leaves a sharp impression on them on 10th, September (Monday) 2) record scenes or objects of their own living space or area which they could associate with the article on their mobile 3) send the recorded materials to Chapter II by Email.
Eleven artists who participate in this project show a wide spectrum of outcomes depending on a diversity of media, editing styles and each artist’s personal tendency of choosing news in their region or nation and internalizing them. Without editing the original format, the articles are presented with black and white photos. Since the local languages in the articles remain intact with an aim for providing their originality, the legibility of the text is considerably restricted. Consequently, spectators attempt to engage themselves to the work by analyzing a correlation between the photos and the articles with only fundamental information about the artists’ geographical locations and their previous body of works. It ultimately enables the viewers to concentrate on the images containing their aesthetic elements such as compositions, colors, and subjects derived from a black and white gradation of Light and Non-light.
The exhibition will provide the audience an opportunity to reflect upon the bias and improvisatory traits of news and its ingrained volatility. Also, it will trigger each viewer’s opinion about not only artistic value and implication of the images captured by the artists’ intention, but a boundary between press photography and fine-art photography.
