![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/078-Fridericianum-Speculations-SCREEN-\u00a9-Achim-Hatzius.jpg\")
Jon Rafman, New Age Demanded (Pushed and Pulled Red to Blue), 2013. 3D Polyamid print, auto-body paint. 45 x 25 x 30 cm Installation view. Fridericianum. \u00a9 Photo: Achim Hatzius Courtesy Jon Rafman and Future Gallery, Berlin<\/p>\n Jon Rafman, New Age Demanded (Pushed and Pulled Red to Blue), 2013. 3D Polyamid print, auto-body paint. 45 x 25 x 30 cm Installation view. Fridericianum. \u00a9 Photo: Achim Hatzius Courtesy Jon Rafman and Future Gallery, Berlin<\/p>\n
The city of Kassel has played host to quintennial mammoth show, Documenta, for the past 6 decades. For the next two months, however, Kassel’s Fridericianum Museum is playing host to a more modest showcase of artists whose practice focuses on\u00a0technology and its impact on the world, but with a vigor and immediacy\u00a0that makes you wonder \u2013 what exactly is going on here?<\/p>\n
\u201cSpeculations on Anonymous Materials\u201d\u00a0combines the voices of artists who\u00a0touch on the consequences of living in our post-information age: an\u00a0age where you, me and everyone else is using the Internet and computer\u00a0technology on an unprecedented scale. Inclusive technological change\u00a0has seduced grandmas into paying bills, Mexican drug-lords into\u00a0sharing photos and (almost) everyone else into using its services for\u00a0all manners of complex and mundane tasks.\u00a0In such a disparate world of voices, all shouting for our online and\u00a0offline attention, it can be difficult to draw the line between
virtual and real spaces.<\/p>\n
Trisha Baga and Jessie Stead explore this\u00a0tension in their immersive landscape filled with performative detritus\u00a0and punctuated by roaming soundscapes. Multiple visual realities are\u00a0superimposed on top of one another, forcing you into a subjective and\u00a0selective editing process. Information must be compulsively screened\u00a0and rejected based on its personal relevance and applicability or you\u00a0are doomed to mental exhaustion.\u00a0Josh Kline’s cocktails of energy drinks infused with DayQuil and\u00a0caffeine gives a boost to improve our lifestyles, simultaneously\u00a0improving and degrading our bodies \u00ad\u2013 bodies that have long ago been\u00a0commoditized into legitimate territories for lifestyle brands.\u00a0Antoine Catala combines everyone\u2019s love of pizza, cats and butts,\u00a0using language from the mechanised industry of advertising to playfully\u00a0invert cultural memes onto themselves. Yngve Holen presents a slightly\u00a0cynical approach to flying, where the meat of economy class\u00a0clientele is rendered into marble. Holen’s work is a celebration of\u00a0and commiseration to the invention of Extended-range Twin-engine\u00a0Operation Performance Standards (ETOPS), standards that have given rise to\u00a0Trans-atlantic air travel and the tourist industry; now, we are all just one airport\u00a0away from paradise. All the while, Timur Si-Qin’s\u00a0\u201cAxe-Effect\u201d\u00a0sculptures pierce through consumer grade plastic, leaving behind a\u00a0coloured pool of fluorescent synthetic goop, a delightful symbol of\u00a0aesthetic death.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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![\"Antoine](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/059-Fridericianum-Speculations-SCREEN-\u00a9-Achim-Hatzius.jpg\")
Antoine Catala, (L) Image Families, 2013. (Not Cat\/Pizza\/Ass\/Car). (R) (Cat\/Not Pizza\/Ass\/Car). Both works: Latex print, aluminum frame, vacuum pump, hoses, arduino chip, lolenoid switch, 12 C power supplier, misc. power connectors. 190 x 124 x 124 cm. Installation view Fridericianum \u00a9 Photo: Achim Hatzius Courtesy Antoine Catala, 47 Canal, New York and Galerie Christine Mayer, Munich<\/p>\n
But not all the voices in this exhibition are so intense. Aleksandra\u00a0Domanovics video piece\u00a0\u201cFrom Yu to me\u201d\u00a0documents the rise and fall of\u00a0early Internet technologies in the former Yugoslav. Domanovics quiet and\u00a0reflective documentary touches on the oft-overlooked position of\u00a0women in technology. Jan Rafman combines archival computer game\u00a0footage and digital animation in a nostalgic work about the escapist\u00a0potential of games, while Ken Okiishi mixes painterly gestures\u00a0reminiscent of Abstract Expressionists with the blue screen of death, subtly disrupting the fetishistic materiality of technology.<\/p>\n
The multiplicity of positions explored in\u00a0\u201cSpeculations on Anonymous\u00a0Materials\u201d\u00a0touch on issues of identity, authorship, originality and the\u00a0increasing immaterial qualities of objects, real and virtual. It seems\u00a0that the Post-Modern baggage of forever looking to the past for\u00a0inspiration is slowly being shed, and just in time. The new baggage\u00a0is already on next-day delivery, self-designed and customized with the\u00a0aid of a smartphone App and Amazon\u2019s growing business services. But is\u00a0technology being embraced, or perhaps it has just become so pervasive\u00a0that it is difficult to ignore? Either way, the pleasure could be in\u00a0figuring it out for ourselves.<\/p>\n