Image: Daleen Bloemers, Untitled (2018), digital techniques, dimensions variable

Unsettled Tensions

Artists: Corine Aalvanger, Aubane Berthommé Marinez, Daleen Bloemers,
Daan Muller, Kim Nuijen, Eric Patel en Rik Schutte
Opening: January 27 – 16-18h
Exhibition: January 27 – February 24

Guy Debord’s ​ The Society of the Spectacle was written more than 60 years  ago, but if we consider the spectacle in light of pressure to perform at work,  in relationships or on the internet, can we lay claim to transcending its logic  and domination?    

The deluge of images across social media has given rise to a condition where  we are simultaneously unable to remember or forget everything from  “relatable content to disposable people.”​1 ​Have we lost sight of the big picture  and the tools to comprehend our own condition and each other? At the same  time, there is an immense desire from people around the world to see  something different, a new world. Nationalism and fear of immigration have  fueled contagious populist movements. And the leftist uprisings of the last  few years have failed to coalesce into a unified front for an equitable future.    

What then could a plurality of futures look like with radical liberation from  work, commodity fetishism and the state? Instead of relegating Debord’s  seminal ideas to the past, ​ Unsettled Tensions​ thematizes an effort to  understand its criticality today. How can we voice alternatives and challenge  the fatalism of exclusion, stress and precarity? By recognizing that we have  not escaped the political and cultural order driven by the spectacle of  capitalist realism, this show reflects a group attempt to imagine steps toward  collective futurity. 

1 ​https://reallifemag.com/issue-consuming-others/