[D66] The Future that Was

[Antid Oto]

http://smartprojectspace.net/upcoming_exhibitions/gabriel.php
The Future that Was

by Gabriel Lester


Including: Thomas Bakker, Melanie Bonajo, Pedro Barateiro, Heman Chong, 
Jonas Dahlberg, Mariana Castillo Deball, Koenraad Dedobbeleer, Gintaras 
Didžiapetris, Thea Djordjadze, Zoro Feigl, Hella Jongerius, Surasi 
Kusolwong, Runo Lagomarsino, Joris Lindhout, Goshka Macuga, Raimundas 
Malašauskas, Jankovics Marcell, Girolamo Marri, Bojan Šarčević, Onco 
Tattje, Bik van der Pol, Barbara Visser, Freek Wambacq

  	
Exhibition until Sunday 30 December 2012


"Why do you find this particular one so difficult to name?" she asked. 
"I think I've named too many," he replied, "It seems to me, I have run 
out of names." They converse, without looking at each other, their eyes 
affixed on their screens, fingers rapidly firing away letters on the 
keyboard. "Wasn't there a technique you used to generate possible names 
for these new elements?" she asked. "There is. And it still works pretty 
well," he replied. "A new technique perhaps? It seems to me you're sick 
of your own cleverness with this one," she said. "There isn't time to 
develop a new technique. And even if I did, I'm sure it wouldn't be 
good," he replied, eyes on his screen. "Revolutions take time, and you 
have none. So what does one do in such a situation?" she asked. He 
sighed, softly. He stopped typing, sat back and folded his arms. She 
stopped typing, and stared at him. (Heman Chong)

The Statement exhibition The Future that Was relates to experiences of 
time, which continue to fascinate the Dutch artist Gabriel Lester, and 
to our ways of dealing with them when we try to arrive at a picture of 
the past, present or future. What if everything simply continues to 
repeat itself to infinity? Taking the form of cell structures, Lester 
traverses the entire exhibition space with a prodigious scenographic 
installation that brings together some twenty artists whose work 
interplays between the idea of time as a linear concept and the starkly 
contrasting idea of cyclical time, the notion of being as an eternal 
recurrence. The Future that Wasseeks out the role that faith, fortune 
and fate play in our experience of time and space; moreover, fate that 
can be regarded in Nietzschean terms as Amor Fati - an embrace of what 
is unavoidable, or translated literally, as "love of fate".

In order to address existence as we experience it in infinite time and 
space, it is straightforward to begin with oneself and one’s personal 
experience. We breathe in and out, our heart beats, blood flows through 
our arteries, and our hair continues to grow. People live in this logic 
and know nothing more than the repetition of this process until there is 
a definitive end. But does anything ever absolutely come to an end? 
Rather than ending, perhaps things enter a domain beyond our perception, 
continuing to live, or appearing as a new form.

With this exhibition, SMART Project Space and the Netherlands Media Art 
Institute introduce the new presentation institution New Art Space 
Amsterdam (NASA).

*Both the title of the show and the last paragraph of this text are from 
Heman Chong, and comprise his contribution to this exhibition.