calendario eventi  :: 

X

12/4/2012

Who told you so?!

Onomatopee, Eindhoven

Onomatopee 75
Research project

Who told you so? ! is the 2012 Research project year-program featuring four group shows, delivering four chapters of social ambiguity.
The truth vs. government, organisation, scene and family: about the secularisation of stories of social cohesion through individually processed hybrid flows of information.

Living through ambiguity and searching for cohesion: this is where we pair up the increasingly hybrid character of the points of reference by which we narrate our personal identities, together with our need for stories that allow us to engage in social cohesion (government, organisation, scene and family) and proceed to confront these traditional social structures.

A project wherein Onomatopee unleashes various designers and critics to highlight specific fields of ambiguity as stories of social cohesion: on the level of government, social organisation, scene and family. On these stages, we are challenged by texts and images to approach the narrations of our identity and stories of our cohesion. In four group shows that function as chapters Onomatopee attempts to take an in-depth look into the story and the narration: our individual play with sources of information and the desire for social cohesion.

“What we need is Star Peace and not Star Wars”
– Mikhail Gorbachev

With:
Aleksandra Domanovic (SI / DE),
Foundland (NL),
Gokce Suvari (TR),
Group R.E.P. (revolutionary experimental space) (UA)
Lieven De Boeck (BE),
Mauro Vallejo (ES),
Monika Löve (EE / UK),
Slavs and Tatars (INT)
+ Project specific texts by Dr. Jonathan Short and Matteo Lucchetti
+ Project specific poem by Joost Baars

Curator/editor: Freek Lomme

This first chapter of our year-long Who told you so program focuses on the story of Truth vs. Government.
The stories that construct our national identities become arguable as they are overrun by an extreme flow of global data exchanges via Internet, social media, travel and migration. Humanity has become global as the stories we deal with on a daily basis arise from everywhere across the globe. We generate our own narration through these in an eclectic manner, intuitively. Identities are configured from the bottom-up, throughout the lively narrations of the multitude. Meanwhile national and supranational governments attempt to offer identities in which we can find cohesion, just as the “European” storyline is trying to postulate something of a Jewish/Christian/humanist body.

This first chapter takes on the visual and textual narrations that are able to question the official story and help us to produce our individual narrations. They provoke us to doubt the context in which the story of the government presents itself, and allow for speculation and new relationships through which we are able to playfully recount the configuration of the narrative. It stimulates us to go beyond our own pleasantly eclectic narratives as well as the constant stream of “official” stories.

MOTIVATION
When the narration molds the story to its own will, design shows itself as a powerful instrument: from advertise- ments to political chit chat, from textual to visual metaphors, from boasting at work to the power of a few words that can boost somebody’s spirit. If we play this game well, we become powerful: we can impose our will onto others and the world around us. This is the manifestation of the strength and power of the individual whistleblower rewriting the story, or of the greatest influence of collective delusion – for better or for worse.

Ambiguous information is questionable information. Sources of information – from media to personal conversations and individual beliefs – are tumbling ever more frequently over each other. This project approaches ambiguisation as a meaning-creation process in a social context. Ambiguisation as a way of communication through which meaning shows its ambiguity, when it shows itself differently and subversively to the status quo or delusion. The moment at which we raise the question “why is that then ” It anticipates a current in which the story of the one is hijacked by the other; where the meaning is made suspect is even declared to be false. Often this occurs secretly and unconsciously. In short, the signified truth of the one is questioned by the other. This project shows its fascinating manifestation within specific social contexts and challenges us as individuals to relate to these more sharply.

Onomatopee takes on a number of societal cornerstones in which ambiguous truths come to light: ambiguisation as a meaning-creation process in a social context. The project consists of four sections: four exhibitions, which will appear as four chapters in the final publication. The sections are as follows: Truth vs. Government (“What we need is Star Peace and not Star Wars,” March – April); Truth vs. Organization (“The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool,” May – June); Truth vs. Scene (“Accent your positive and delete your negative,” September – October); and Truth vs. Family (“What must it be like for a little boy to read That daddy never loved mummy?” November – December).
Through the eyes of various experts, artists, designers and more, this ambiguity is made tangible and brought up for discussion. They present ambiguous fields of tension, from conservative traditionalist to progressive narratives, especially at a time when left and right do not help us in getting further.

Onomatopee believes in individual freedom, but finds it unacceptable to link truth to dead authors, to faith or to the eye of the beholder. Our capacity to be creative and think outside the box invites us to pick up communication as a political game. It challenges us to be independent, and offers us the opportunity to explore the extent to which we can and want to actively participate and interfere therein – or passively surrender.

With this, Onomatopee illustrates that words can speak louder than action, but that we do not have to go along with that. We want to stimulate your senses. This way we can get a clearer view on the preconceptions and implicit assumptions in our world, as well as on the various promises and resources that surround us. This is how we can sharpen our ability to share and deal with information, how we consciously determine our position in the world and stimulate our collective awareness.

Exhibition design: Dave Keune
Graphic design: Novak Ontwerp
Made possible thanks to: Municipality of Eindhoven and Mondriaan Fund

Image: Lieven De Boeck, Mirroir # 1, 2010. Photo by Philippe De Gobert.

OMP75.2 / Research project
WHO TOLD YOU SO? ! #2 Truth vs. Organisation
will open on June 8th 2012

Head of communication Mondriaan Foundation
Mirjam Beerman t +31 (0)20 5231523 m.beerman@mondriaanfonds.nl

Opening Friday April 13th, 20:00
Opening specials:
DJ actions by Jeroen Offerman and word of governmental engagement by Mary-Ann Schreurs, alderman of culture of the Eindhoven municipality.

Onomatopee office & projectspace
Bleekstraat 23 - 5611 VB Eindhoven The Netherlands
Open: thursday - Sunday 13:00-17:00

stampa

permanent link