21 ottobre 2008 - 3 gennaio 2009, Brussels
Opening Saturday 18 October, 6:00-9:00pm, at Argos-centre for art & media, Werfstraat 13 rue du Chantier, Brussels, the event “Interstitial Zones. Historical Facts, Archaeologies of the Present and Dialectics of Seeing”, curated by Paul Willemsen. In the media, historic events obey the laws of the media. They are simplified and misrepresented in single dimension. The false economics of current events and info-entertainment that govern the news grind reality up. Reality no longer has anywhere to flee. We see either clichés (the repetition and proliferation of the same thing, over and over) or we see nothing at all (discrimination against context and background, or censure). In both cases, there is a form of blindness whereby the world can no longer be looked at and the viewer is shipwrecked. The media knows only the here and now, that which is fleeting and bears no inner memory. The media shows facts over which we have no power. Interstitial Zones offers a critical alternative or opposing space, with the work of 15 artists and/or collectives that have sought out the crooks and crannies of post-war history that the mass media never reveal. The topics are diverse: The Red Army Faction or RAF, George Bush’s inaugural speech, the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, 9/11, Iraq, the extra-legal regime of the Guantánamo Bay detention centre, the assault on Salvador Allende, the Gaza conflict, religious suicide attacks and so on. These specific historic events could equally be exchanged for others. The meta-narrative breaking up of the mechanisms of media representation and seeking out intervals make up the starting point of the exhibition. These intervals manifest themselves, for example, in voice-overs detached from the visual presentation, interchanging multiple time spans and the use of black or white monochrome images. As a result, a dialectic is set in motion between representations by the mass media on the one hand – with all the consequences for the way they take hold in our collective memories – and an ecological/iconoclastic position synonymous to the singularity of the artist on the other hand. Inherent to the interstitial space is the fact that it is a space of possibilities, a place where a new, different kind of visibility is put into effect. […] Info: tel +32 2 2290003 fax +32 2 2237331 e-mail: info@argosarts.org; www.argosarts.org