Everything is Everywhere, All the Time. And Too Much of It: Engaging with Collapsed Contexts in the Media Landscape
The 2020 UCLA Design Media Arts MFA class is pleased to present CONTEXT COLLAPSE, a group exhibition at the Broad Art Center’s New Wight Gallery on October 17 and continues through October 24. The opening reception takes place Friday, October 17, from 5:00-8:00 p.m.
The eleven works featured in CONTEXT COLLAPSE undertake a conversation around the shifting nature of context in contemporary life and art. Works featured include installation, sound, video, and sculpture. Exhibiting artists include Zeynep Abes, Graham Akins, Berfin Ataman, Erin Cooney, Ben Lerchin, Clara Levias, Blaine O’Neill, Miles Peyton, Hirad Sab, Dalena Tran, and Leming Z/C.
The present is haunted by the permanence of data. To speak in the moment is to know that that moment may live forever. Our words may be willfully misinterpreted, or perhaps be the spark that ignites a movement. Context is liable to change at any moment, regardless of original intent. We retreat to distrust, to inside jokes and opaque language. Groups defined by affinity give way to movements of dissent.
The term “Context Collapse” has been attributed to the research of danah boyd, and her observations about what happens when individuals from disparate social environments find themselves interacting in an altogether new context. While it was coined in reference to the amalgamating tendencies of online platforms, context collapse occurs whenever differentiation breaks down. Origins are obscured and the vertical nature of hierarchies become reoriented into a chaotic flatland of asymmetrical symbols. A 3D Scan of a temple is uploaded by an artist and used by an ad agency. A meme associated with the alt-right in the US becomes an icon of resistance in Hong Kong. Border crises encroach on the stability of imagined geographies.
If language structures the space of locality, what happens in the gaps between global vernaculars? If one’s audience is unknown, how does one have agency over what is determined?
This event is presented by the UCLA Department of Design Media Arts
Exhibition Dates: October 17- 24
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 17, 5pm
Venue: Broad Art Center, New Wight Gallery
Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, 10am-5pm
Price: Free
