Welcome >_< Take a Seat Wherever (cringevibing on a downward spiral) 歡迎光臨矛盾漩渦 >_<
Curated by 策展人 Angela Liu 廖翊名, Institution of Niche
Co-supported by HART and Tomorrow Maybe, Eaton HK
Artists 藝術家: Miri (Hong Kong), Jenn (London), Noura Tafeche (Milan), Janice Kei (London & Hong Kong), Ringo Lo (Hong Kong) Brandon Brandy (Los Angeles), Rachel Jackson (Los Angeles), E8mkboy (Hong Kong), Cas Wong (Hong Kong)
13.08 - 03.09.2023
Opening Reception: 13.08.2023 4-6pm
A rhetorical delusion or heartfelt self-affirmation, “Welcome >_< Take a Seat Wherever (cringevibing on a downward spiral)” explores the emotive language of Gen Z as well as implications of being terminally online in a confusing, almost pathologized, schizophrenic state.
Taking humour as a point of departure, the exhibition looks into the why’s and how’s of memetic irony: why do these devices share an affinity among Gen Z, and how are these memes—in Dawkins’ terms and in a contemporary vernacular—disseminated? In the era where ironic expression is nearly indistinguishable from sincere belief, meme makers conflate ‘based’ with ‘cringe’, readers take comedic scripts as half-truths. The virtual versus actual has become obsolete. So have art and memes that slowly morph into one another.
In true Derridean fashion, the exhibition plays with ellipses and clashes in meaning, langage, visual cultures, and clichés. As savvy gurus and prophets of microtrend cycles, cores and lores, the artists draw inspiration from their mediated realities. They make sense of their subjectivity—in the age of deepfakes, meta-irony, memes as cultural artefacts, hyper-referentiality—through video, sculpture, painting, installation, exe file, and appropriated design image-objects.
是次展覽「歡迎光臨矛盾漩渦 >_<」，探討了Z世代的情感性用語以及生活在一個分裂、無序，甚至病態的網絡上的意義。
以幽默為出發點，本展覽探究了迷因式諷刺手法 (memetic-irony) 的成因和運用：為何這種表達方式在Z世代之間引發了共鳴，以及迷因如何被挪用及傳播。今時今日難分曲與直，讀者把荒謬的喜劇情節當作半真實的故，虛擬與現實的邊界早已消亡，藝術和迷因也在慢慢融合為類體。
以德里達的風格 (Derridian)，「歡迎光臨矛盾漩渦 >_<」邀請了九位具前瞻性的藝術家在語意、視覺文化和陳詞濫調中玩弄省略和衝突。他們從各自的生活中汲取靈感。透過錄像、雕塑、繪畫、裝置、exe文件和二次創作的設計圖像——在深偽技術、諷刺、迷因作為文物、高度互文性和指稱性（參照性、hyper-referentiality）的時代——來理解自己的主觀性。
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This exhibition is part of the “Curatorship Incubation Programme” in 2022 organised by HART Collective Limited. The exhibition is independently created, it does not reflect the view(s) of HART Collective Limited.
這次展覽為HART Collective Limited舉辦的《策展培育計劃》之一部分。展覽為獨立創作，不代表 HART Collective Limited 之立場。