arebyte 2017 Programme

Control

For its 2017 programme, arebyte focuses and investigates themes surrounding and relating to the idea of ‘Control’, inspired by the essay Postscript on Control Societies (1992) by Gilles Deleuze and a publication by New Formations (2015) following a similar name.

Control brings local and international artists working mainly in new and experimental media, digital and performance to respond to global current affairs in a rapid and spontaneous way – from geopolitical concerns, class and racism, to immigration, legal and social affairs. Using new digital developments such as Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, along with the proliferation of the Internet and new global and local attempts to appropriate and privatise the web, Control questions the state of individuality, anonymity, surveillance and the distribution of knowledge in our current society through interrogation and artist’s response. 

Looking at recent global (mostly Western world) and local affairs (UK and Europe specifically), such as Brexit, the 15 year anniversary of 9/11, Snowden and the NSA, the Refugee situation in Europe, and the cry for an alternative political and educational systems, we feel that addressing these issues now is appropriate as ever.

Continuing Michel Foucault’s investigation of power in ‘disciplinary societies’ in the 18th and 19th centuries, Deleuze offers a new articulation of the shift in the organisation of power in Post-Fordist and Neo-Liberal era towards a ‘society of control’. Although short, the postscript has been interpreted with various degrees to concepts of power and control; from complex networks and consumer-culture, to education and neo-liberal architecture. At its core, the text examines the shift from societies of discipline to societies of control; hugely relevant today when the UK is one of the most surveilled nations in the world. When the ubiquity of CCTV cameras in England was once a key symbol of the nation as a totalitarian surveillance state in the 80s, we now imagine digital and data security with a more complex perspective. 

This programme continues arebyte’s work in 2016 looking at the relationship between the Law and Art. During that year, we featured a series of projects investigating the boundaries between the legal and society, from the means in which we make logical and aesthetic decisions, to surveillance, perfectionism and community work. 

Control spreads across our two locations, in Hackney Wick and Clerkenwell, as well as our online gallery. Projects will range from online and onsite gallery residencies to research projects, group shows and solo exhibitions. The programme includes educational and community activities such as workshops, talks and interviews. These will focus on the means in which artists provoke and expose certain political, social and cultural agendas, using ‘control’ as a guiding theme. 

Launching our onsite exhibition programme, is a group show called Blinding Pleasures, curated by Filippo Lorenzin (IT). Three artists are invited to investigate and respond to the use of social media, looking more specifically at Facebook, in its agency in shaping our world and social systems. The show will take the form of transience, moving back and forth from research to exhibition, creating a dynamic exchange between curator, artist and the online presence. 

Taking place during the same time is fronterlebnis by artist Dani Ploeger (DE) together with musician Nenad Marković (RS). The artists will collaborate in a 2 week research trip, travelling along the path of arms dealing from Eastern Europe (Ukraine) to Western Europe (UK), with occasional stop-offs at the location of recent terror attacks such as Paris and Brussels to investigate the representation of weapons in contemporary culture and music. The research trip will finish in arebyte gallery and will develop into an exhibition in late 2017. 

Following fronterlebnis is a ten-day group research period led by artist Heather Barnett (UK) called In the Realm of the Collective; a two part project looking at self organising systems and group behaviours in human and non-human entities, from Slime Mould to Robots with Humans in between. The second part, which will take place at arebyte gallery and its surrounding neighbourhood, is a three-day theory and practice festival scheduled for the last weekend of June, inviting the audience to take part in a series of social experiments. The project is in collaboration with SHOAL group and the Swarm Lab. 

Mid April – May sees our first Gallery Residency with the artist Max Colson (UK)in which the artist will look at Artificial Intelligence and control architecture, and create a pseudo symposium using chatbots, academic aesthetics and architectural model building. This project will continue as a solo exhibition titled The Real And Pleasant Land in Oct – Nov 2017.

At the heart of our programme is a six week Gallery Residency with the Canadian-American Collective Desearch Repartment. Occurring in mid May until the end of June, the collectives work titled CensorSHIP will consist of a two-day performative workshop taking place on cruise ship traveling on the Thames. 

During their residency, the artists will investigate and create a series of artworks and workshops touching on ideas of torture, human rights, neoliberalism and gender. Starting at Waterman’s in West London and ending at arebyte Gallery in East London, the cruise will allow the audience to be in close proximity with the artists and the topic, as well as fictional narratives and sight-seeing spots. At the end the audience will be invited to the exhibition space at the gallery. 

At the end of the programme is a month long research and performance exhibition by the artist Louise Ashcroft (UK) who will create a series of social interventions at the surrounding area of Hackney Wick, Stratford and the Olympic Park. 

Being hosted in both of our locations, the projects allow the audience to explore both areas and their geo-political and social changes in close relations – from the ever changing area of Hackney Wick and the Olympic Park, to the already gentrified area of the Barbican and its Brutalist surroundings in Farringdon with its city connections and the design hub Clerkenwell which plays host to our second space.

Throughout the programme, the artists, the audience and the participants are introduced to new forms of social and political agendas and methods of control; from digital methods to arms, consumerism and education. The audience is invited to take an active role in most of the projects, asking them to become agents within the networks and the systems that the artists create.