07.12.2013 | 02.02.2014
NUMBERS IN THE DARK | CORY ARCANGEL, PAUL CHAN, YONA FRIEDMAN, STEPHEN KELLY, JENNIFER MARMAN & DANIEL BORINS, JORGE MENDEZ BLAKE, MARCO DE MUTIIS, PIPILOTTI RIST, YES MEN, ROSARIO ZORRAQUÍN
“Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003”
– Eric Schmidt, CEO, GOOGLE
Numbers in the Dark is a timely reflection on our ‘age of information’. The exhibition looks to those processes in which defunct, arbitrary, obsolete, erroneous, corrupt or marginalized data is being appropriated and recontextualized in contemporary art offering new meaning and perspectives on the world today.
Discussions on our Information Age are framed by opposing characterizations as an apocalyptic era, calling us to oppose the fatigue that infinite quantities of data can only provoke, or as a democratic epoch in which we can enjoy instant access to knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously. We are torn between these two poles.
Confusion is such that writer James Gleick, when narrating how the Internet has revolutionized communications, wittily stated: “Books about information glut join the cornucopia; no irony is intended when the online bookseller Amazon.com transmits messages like ‘Start reading Data Smog on your Kindle in under a minute’ and ‘Surprise me! See a random page of this book.’ ”
Numbers in the Dark however was conceived as a territory of inquiry, overturning binary oppositions and exposing the largely unacknowledged role that uncertainty, excess and ambiguity play in shaping today’s social relations. International in its scope, the exhibition brings together a broad range of artists who glean information through unconventional means and in doing so, aim to disrupt the implicit trust in which we subsume data.
Artists include: Cory Arcangel, Paul Chan, Yona Friedman, Stephen Kelly, Jennifer Marman & Daniel Borins, Jorge Mendez Blake, Marco De Mutiis, Pipilotti Rist, Yes Men, Rosario Zorraquín.
Numbers in the Dark takes its title from a tale by the allegorical mid-20th century writer, Italo Calvino, in which a boy happens upon an old accountant with a dark secret –the data, the information, upon which entire countries have based their foundations since ancient times is flawed. A single numerical error now echoes throughout history, and no matter how hard we try, we can never set the sums right.
As we forge ahead in our Information Age, the extent to which we put our faith in inculpable machines and infinite data grows exponentially, but as Calvino pointed out, errors and ambiguity exist, truth is unreliable and the meaning we construct from it is unstable.
Curated by Ryan Doherty and Florencia Malbran
This exhibition is organized by the Southern Alberta Art Gallery. Funding assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the City of Lethbridge.
