Linked Out: Logged In

Gossamer Fog, 50 Resolution Way, London | 22 February - 9 March

About

Linked Out: Logged In is an exhibition about digital environments, collectively illustrating a fictional landscape that is gradually becoming ever so real to our generation. Within this theme, the exhibition will focus on the element of ‘fiction’ - specifically fictional characters, their saturated and accelerating production, social impacts, and the possibility of existence as historical relics in the future.

The purpose of reimagining toyetic products’ physical existence is to reflect on real-life events such as Disney characters entering the public domain, the growing Otaku (Japanese; people with consuming interests in anime, manga, video games, or computers) and Hikikomori (Japanese; a form of severe social withdraw mostly on adolescence or young men) population since the 1980s’ Japanese sub-culture boom, and the rise of collectable toys craze around the same period. In a period where these factory-made objects can fetch hundreds of thousands, such as the Barbie auctioned in 2010 (sold for $302,500) at Christie’s, is a new reality being formed through people’s constant familiarity with the fictional? And with the accelerating production and profiting off of new characters, how will these currently existing characters be seen?

Looking at these objects from an archaeological point of view, Linked Out: Logged In reveals the phenomena of instability in the current society. In an environment where an individual’s worth is measured by labour and can be easily exchanged, the attachment to ‘fiction’ became an outlet of escape.

Exhibited Works

Artist(s)

Aleksy Domke (Netherlands) / Audrey lung / Bea Xu / Billy Crosby / Celeste Viv Ly / David Verhegyi / Gil Altarace Sherman / Lina Deng / Sam Stewert / Tom McVeigh / Maximilian Prag (Austria) / Malu Laet