November 15 – December 3, 2017
Curator: Lisa Rosendahl
Public Art Agency
Luleå, Sweden
Artists
Fanny Carinasdotter, Tomas Örn, Anja Örn, Yuri Pattison, Raqs Media Collective, Eva Stina Sandling, Lisa Tan
The exhibition is the final segment of Public Art Agency Sweden’s exhibition series Industrial Society in Transition, which has taken place in different parts of the country since 2015. In Luleå, the thematic starting point is “extraction” and how this value-creating activity has developed from mining activities to data analysis. The materiality of mineral mining and the invisible data streams of the digital age have more in common than one might think. Both data networks and heavy industry are dependent on enormous amounts of energy, and the production of computer hardware involves metals that are extracted via mining. As our own planet is drained of its resources, the industry looks toward other celestial bodies for future mining prospects. The enormous amount of data we leave behind on the internet is reused by commercial businesses, and the most intimate aspects of our lives become commodities. Does technological development create new opportunities for life or will Earth and humankind gradually be reduced to a state of impoverishment?
Photo credit:
Jean-Baptiste Béranger
Texts
Rosendahl, Lisa. “Extraction” curatorial statement.link /pdf