[spectre] Summer 2020 exhibition - Undocumented events and object permanence

[Bjørn Magnhildøen]

An online exhibition series thematizing documentation, conservation,
(false) memory, (art) object, phenomenology, and blockchain certification.

The Summer 2020 exhibition is ready,  containing 58 works from 50+ artists.
The theme for the edition is 'undocumentable'.
A lot of wonderful, inquisitive, thought-provoking works, none mentioned,
non forgotten!
URL: https://noemata.net/ueop/2-20.php

Participating artists

Kristin Anderson, Bruce Barber, Domenico Barra, Aad Björkro, Rafael
Bresciani, Tyler Calkin, Qianxun Chen, d_d Games, Alvar Danielsen, Reynald
Drouhin, Paul Groch Frazier, Benna Gaean Maris, Hassan Harvey,
@henridegrasse, Max Herman, James A Hutchinson, Danielle Imara, Nivard
Jorissen, Timo Kahlen, Michelle Koenig, Tyrone Kunkle, Alex Lagueux, Carme
Loupton, Bjørn Magnhildøen, Felix Maurer, Brüno Melo, Nick Montfort,
Gilberto Morgan May, Gabby Patterson, Simon Perathoner, klaus pinter, Tija
Place, Max "Cory" Poplar, poroku, Stefanie Reling-Burns, Michael Ridge,
Oscar Ruiz Altamirano, Emile Schleich, Nina Sobell, Alan Sondheim and Sandy
Baldwin, Elle Thorkveld, Patricia Tolbert, andrew topel, A. P. Vague, Paul
Wiegerinck, Brent Wiley, William Wolfgang Wunderbar, Hussel Zoo, zsolt, and
[anonymous].

Curatorial notes

Documentation and mediation of art are central and have been the subject of
debate throughout the past century, especially with regard to the
dematerialisation of art in the 1960s and prior, via conceptual art in
variants, in various attempts to combat the commodification of art and the
art object itself. It may be a challenge not to document and preserve
online art, just as much as it would be to delete it.The purpose of this
call is to investigate art and internet art as documented, non-documented,
non-documentable.

Object permanence: where a we learn that an object continues to exist even
though we don't perceive it in any way. False memories: it's surprisingly
easy to manipulate memory, and that the media plays the role of a false
servant in that a mediation of an experience causes one to remember the
mediation while distorting and forgetting the experience itself. A
mediation of an art object can thus be seen as the opposite of an object
permancence: We learrn we can continue to perceive it though it doesn't
exist in any way. The object disappears and no longer exists for the people
who sense it, while it continues to exist for those who don't sense it.

Research suggests that the feeling of having something 'on the tip of the
tongue' may be quite precise, ie. it would indicate that the memory exists
and that it's not false. This could be understood in information technology
analogous to a cryptographic hash function. The function can be utilized to
verify that an object exists and is correct without having access to the
object itself.

Once we know how our experiences are shaped and distorted via cognition,
memory, media, and documentation, the more important it is that art allows
and encouraged experimentation conveying an experienced reality, eg.
through a phenomenological approach, as an exploration and analysis of an
object-as-experienced using new technology for a 'tip of the tongue'
documentation/verification. The point has been to provide ways of
documenting something without mediating it, that we can get understand that
something is the case without being able to perceive or experience it.

The exhibition is notarized and certified on the bitcoin blockchain with
the hash key of the zip of the collection embedded in the transaction. It
means there's a public stamp referring to it, a proof-of-existence, since
the hash-key is unique. So, the undocumented events and objects of the
collection are then nonetheless proven to exist, which was partly the
point, to assert an existence of the otherwise non-documented and
non-documentable. In various degrees the works reflect this. In other
words, blockchain is used as an archive, museum or a similar function for
conservation of works, but without containing or revealing them - its only
function is to certify their existence when asked.

For more info
https://noemata.net/ueop/
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