gateways – art and networked culture

The exhibition gateways. Art and Networked Culture presents works that deal with communication and networking, and that reflect a global Internet culture through the societal changes introduced by digital media. How do we deal with expanding networks? How we take advantage of the potential of global networks? How we behave within them?

“Gateways” means access – access to spaces, to information, to data networks or communities. In computer science, a “gateway” is a switching apparatus for converting data, which functions as an interface between various types of networks and accomplishes the digital transcoding of various media. The works shown in the exhibition thematize – in a manner analogous to the digital function of transmission – the transcoding or even translation of data and its evaluation in new contexts of meaning. By raising issues, these works lay out the consequences of increasing networking on our actions, our perception and experience of the world. The artistic confrontation with the significance of digitalization in society is not primarily about a reflection of technology per se, but rather about the consideration of its impact as a socio-economic phenomenon. Along with the question about changing space and the increased layering of information, the question about the development of the self – which also exists through and within existing networks – comes to the fore.

A central aspect of the exhibition is the reconfiguration of public space through the increasing overlap of the informational sphere and geographical space. Artists are pushing the envelope of mobile media, testing their potential to provide gateways into spaces and communities and to identify alternative ways of networking beyond a largely consumer-oriented society. Mobile technologies are used in unexpected ways to render the invisible data network visible and tangible. These artistic interventions are not limited to data visualizations of virtual space, but rather provide an opportunity to reveal suppressed knowledge.

For more information see the gateways blog.

exhibition venue:
KUMU
Art Museum of Estonia
Gallery of Contemporary Art (5th floor)
Weizenbergi 34 / Valge 1
10127 Tallinn