‘WiFi’ exhibition in Seoul – running October 11th-23rd

I am happy to share that my work will be part of a South Korean exhibition by Minyung Im.

‘Music Videos Without Music: Gangnam Style’ will be displayed along with works of online artists such as Sarah Jane Newbury, Adolfo Mateo, Eve Kim, Hwang Kim, Clayton Cubitt and Iggyjuk. The Internet and connectivity-themed art exhibition will be held in Gallery 175, in Seongbuk-Ku of Seoul. Opening performance at 7pm, October 11th; free admission.

You can find all details here: http://www.istherewifihere.com

Update (3/11/2015): The exhibition has been declared a success. I would like to thank everyone who came to see  and experience it.

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Photo © Minyung Im

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“We are always looking for the nearest WiFi. When we arrive somewhere new, our first question is often “Is there Wifi here?” rather than “Where am I?”.

Our machines are warm. Now we look to wifi for comfort instead of the bonfire. Where there is wifi there are people. Some people jealously guard their wifi from strangers by building a fence around it called a “password”, and some open it to all. Public wifi spots feel like bonfires – they bring people together physically, even though those individuals might only communicate with those not present. The internet made our communities abstract, isolating us physically. Wifi spots, ironically, pull those isolated together. A primal shared resource.

At first it seemed like the internet was so full of possibility: a new space for communities to exist in would surely enrichen the world. So many people with so many different ideas to bring, coming together. But when the internet becomes the only form of community, where do new ideas and influence come from? Like any isolated community it stagnates. Even if diversity exists there, we mostly stick to visiting the same sites, talking to the same people, and reading about the same ideas. But occasionally, maybe after a wrong turn, we find traces of some genuinely different ideas and worlds, evidence of other individuals residing outside the sanitised corridors of the contemporary net.

This exhibition draws together some of these traces. And tempts people to come and see them with the promise of free wifi. We will have a bonfire.”

(Minyung Im)