HKJB: End Times
November 2nd-9th, 2013
Opening: November 2, 2013 7:00-10:00 PM
performance by Rachel Mason at 8:00
Chong Chu
Eric Leiser
Glenn Goldberg
Henry Samelson
Inna Babaeva
Jennifer Gustavson
JR Larson
Jon Cowan
Michelle Vaughan
Rachel Mason
Reed Anderson
Tom Nozkowski
Vicki Sher
Ute Gallmeister
In 1993, the science fiction writer Vernor Vinge delivered a seminal essay titled The Coming Technological Singularity. In it he proposed that the underpinnings of the culmination of technological achievement might be at hand, an acceleration of processes, especially via AI and networks, to the point of a looming sonic boom as they pass us: “Like the shock in a compressible flow, the Singularity moves closer as we accelerate through the critical speed.” Vinge proposed questions about the way this would manifest in the near future – what would the Singularity feel like? By what symptoms would it manifest? Vinge’s questions extend to the present day: “What about the ’90s and the ’00s and the ’10s, as we slide toward the edge? How will the approach of the Singularity spread across the human world view?”
HKJB’s End Times is about the unknown of what has come. Change is all around us, pairing cataclysm with advance. To some, this signals the end of postmodernity into something else, something that does not yet have an accepted label. Perhaps a hallmark of this time (the “slide toward the edge”), is that unawareness becomes endemic to experience. The artworks in this exhibition express select facets of a sense of mystery and lack of fore-knowledge by those who are creating the visual data points that make up the trends leading to tomorrow. They overlap, diverge, and collectively present a reaction. Each artist in End Times proposes a possible world view of conflicting conditions that our consciousness is ever-so-slightly attuned to.
HKJB is a nomadic artist driven curatorial project co-founded in 2009 in New York City by Benjamin King and Jay Henderson. HKJB has participated in exhibitions at Participant Inc. (NY), Exit Art (NY), Silvershed (NY), Neter (Mexico City), and Laroche/Joncas (Montreal), in addition to short term studio based exhibitions across Brooklyn. HKJB is interested in inviting a cross-generational group of artists together into exhibitions where the larger and relational contexts that surround their work can be investigated.
For more information, please contact The Sphinx at thesphinxnyc@gmail.com or HKJB at info@hkjb.org
