Online platform upstream.gallery proudly presents its fourth exhibition

2020 DO NOT LINK

Curated by Dirk Paesmans and Bob Bicknell-Knight

Participating artists:
Madeleine Andersson, Michael Berto, David Blair, Nancy Buchanan, Heath Bunting, Green Cube Gallery, Inari Wishiki, Peter Luining, Conall McAteer, Viktor Timofeev & Jaakko Pallasvuo, Everest Pipkin, Niko Princen, Kristina Pulejkova, Guido Segni, Petra Szemán, Krassimir Terziev, Puck Verkade & Thomas van Linge

Opening, Friday June 12th, 17.00 (CEST)

Location: http://www.upstream.gallery

2020 DO NOT LINK⚠️is an online exhibition concerned with ideas of virality and data distortion, featuring artworks and external links that explore the embedded hyperreality of our networked society. The show takes the format of an infinite scroll, an ever-evolving list of artworks and ephemera, referencing the habit of uncontrollably hoarding electronic bookmarks or digital tabs. The title of the exhibition refers to being disconnected from the world, web pages and one another during this unprecedented moment in history. It acts as both a warning and an impossibility, with 2020 being remembered in history for years to come.
With the rise of search engines and the demise of the URL, websites, much like the year 2020, can now never not be linked to. Within the show an ongoing archive of embedded links, from artist interviews to digital downloads, are available to access, embracing our hyperconnected online existence. From simulating an environment that’s cut off from its essential resource to a tutorial detailing how to enter a fictional realm, the artworks in the exhibition reflect how dependant we are on our interconnected lives./ 

$autocompletion-text!2020DONOTLINK-featuring artworks from a global network of artists on how to create a virality-free digital identity. We have decided to include in this exhibition Internet memes that do not conform to the 'norms' of online practice. We take this decision to be an individual one and have left it to the local artist or other institutional partners to decide whether to exclude anything from the programme. We are encouraging people to submit their works/

$autocompletion-text!2020DONOTLINK-takes the format of an infinite scroll an ever-evolving list of online artworks and ephemera referencing the habit ofthis scrolling element which would make websites look infinitely repetitive. The end is drawn and it's too late for it to get back on track. Eventually the scrolling ends. The web starts over/

$autocompletion-text!2020DONOTLINK-the title of the exhibition refers to being disconnected from the world web pages and one another during lockdown The installation's audience is able to view at an alternative point in the shutdown while being completely disconnected from other parts of the world. According to a statement an expressionist project entitled 'If the page are closed
then I am closed.' - 'If the page are closed
then I am closed' - develops through a series of pieces
including work that explores the continuous flow of information
and the nature of the space during digital shutdown.
Public spaces are radically transformed when the page is closed
The exhibition states: 'The work is meant to highlight how our routines
perceptions
friendships
and people in general
alter when we/

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Bob Bicknell-Knight is an artist, writer and curator. His work is influenced by surveillance capitalism and responds to the hyper consumerism of the internet. Utopia, dystopia, automation, surveillance and digitization of the self are some of the themes that arise through his critical examination of contemporary technologies. Bicknell-Knight is also the founder and director of isthisit?, an online platform for contemporary art that's exhibited over 800 artists since its creation in 2016, through online and offline exhibitions, a digital residency and a physical book series.

Dirk Paesmans is an artist working and living in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. He studied under Nam June Paik at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf before attending CADRE, the electronic arts laboratory at San Jose State University in California. He started his career as a video artist, and since 1995 has been working together with Joan Heemskerk. Both form the artist collective JODI, known for its pioneering net-based artworks.