Tunnel Vision
June 13–September 27, 2015
Press preview: June 12, 1pm
Opening: June 13, 2pm
Opening party: June 13, 7pm
Galleri F15 and MOMENTUM Kunsthall
Moss
Norway
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 11am–5pm
Artists:
Hrafnhildur Arnardottir a.k.a Shoplifter (Iceland/US), Brody Condon (Mexico/US), Steingrimur Eyfjord (Iceland), Valia Fetisov with Dzina Zhuk & Nicolay Spesivtsev (Russia), Johanna Heldebro (Sweden), Minna L. Henriksson (Finland), Sofia Hultén (Sweden/Germany), Ferdinand Ahm Krag (Denmark), Agnieszka Kurant (Poland/US), Cristóbal Lehyt (Chile/US), Eva Löfdahl (Sweden), Joanna Lombard (Algeria/Sweden), Lundahl & Seitl (Sweden), Fujiko Nakaya (Japan), Christine Ödlund (Sweden), Ola Pehrson (Sweden), Edward Shenk (US), Daniel Steegmann Mangrané (Spain/Brazil), Bjarni H. Thorarinsson (Iceland), Sissel Tolaas (Norway/Germany), Ryan Trecartin (US), Steina (Steina Vasulka) (Iceland/US), Emanuel Vigeland (Norway), Julius von Bismarck (Germany), Zhala (Sweden)
Curators:
Jonatan Habib Engqvist (Sweden), Birta Gudjonsdottir (Iceland), Stefanie Hessler (Germany/Sweden), Toke Lykkeberg (Denmark)
About MOMENTUM
Since its inception in Norway in 1998, MOMENTUM has presented outstanding Nordic and international artists. The biennial is the oldest and most established biennial for contemporary art in the Nordic region.
First announcement of related activities June 12 to September 27, 2015
June 12
1pm: Professional preview for international press at MOMENTUM Kunsthall with the artists and curators. For more information contact Victoria Trunova at trunova.artpress [at] uteweingarten.de
June 13
1pm: Bus from Thon Hotell Opera to MOMENTUM Kunsthall
2pm: Official opening at MOMENTUM Kunsthall
Free shuttle buses between MOMENTUM Kunsthall and Galleri F15
7pm–2am: Opening party at House of Foundation in Moss; food & drinks, concert with Zhala
Free bus transfer departs from House of Foundation to Thon Hotell Opera at 2am
June 14
1pm: Curators interview artists at House of Foundation: Joanna Lombard, Julius von Bismarck, Lundahl & Seitl, Agnieszka Kurant
3:30pm: Concert Ny Musikk Østfold
Tunnel Vision
MOMENTUM 8 explores tunnel vision as a cultural and artistic condition. Today’s networked culture not only generates hyper-connectivity, but also various disconnects. People and communities thrive in bubbles of their own. MOMENTUM 8 focuses on artists who inhabit worlds of their own logic and follow their thoughts all the way through.
Tunnel vision has for a long time lent itself to artistic celebration as disarmingly eccentric, but is just as well prone to cultural condemnation as alarmingly asocial. Current techno-scientific developments encourage individualism at the same time as they foster segregated communities into which one can delve and disappear. The personalization of the Internet through abundant use of cookies and algorithms sparks so-called filter-bubbles and you-loops. User data is collected and deployed in a manner that determines what we find and subsequently also what we seek. Our web search queries thus confirm the existing world-view of each and every one of us. If the Internet has been a window to the world, it is now also our own mirror image on the screen.
Immersion in self-referential loops is echoed in a renewed interest in psychotropic substances. Whereas the psychedelic movement of the 1960s was concerned with mind expansion, MOMENTUM 8 focuses on experiences of a narrowing-down of the mind. Such a centering might take the form of trance, meditation or obsessive claustrophobia, where insights might seem lucid since everything else is blanked out. Submerged in a constant flow of information, multitasking and directed concentration are in demand simultaneously. At present, new drugs and technologies are used in order to create a tunnel vision that narrows down this spectrum of information and our access to it.
Addressing conspiracy theories, paranoia and altered states of mind, the exhibition explores what might be called compressed consciousness, that may appear incestuous, navel-gazing or idiosyncratic.
For more information please contact Mari Kolsrud Hustoft at mkh [at] punkto.no or visit www.momentum.no.
