‘My Body Is Your Body Too’ by Alex Selmeci and Szilvia Bolla at VUNU Gallery
First Time there was a Deep Time
The first media (deep time) appeared even before the first men walked the Earth (2.8 million years ago). Sophisticated tools such as hand axes were first used 1.76 million years ago. And information was first shared systematically (as art) more than 40.000 years ago.
Deep inside, you are rare (earth)
The Earth (Gaia) has from its early days been ready to provide the precious materials hidden underneath its surface (Tartar) in order for men to cultivate (Erós) the dead material by transforming it into humanised objects. This expansion of bodies into space moves the boundaries of bodies further to include the objects as well.
It started by 10 centimeters, now we’re a million miles away
Acheulean archaeological industry (1 million – 100,000 years ago) provides us with ample examples of tools discovered across Western and Central Europe. Hand axes are widely considered to be the earlies sophisticated tools (and today also art). Homo erectus used them to extend their hands by 10 centimeters when working (fighting). Today’s industries 4.0 (the conept of the 4th industrial revolution) have brought further expansion and connection of human bodies with the external world. The connection to the nature maintained via a tool (the biological sphere) is now being replaced by the tendency to remove the boundary between the material and immaterial, embodied by the world wide web (digital imperialism).
What is the Message?
In 1960s, Marshall McLuhan published his book entitled The Medium is the Massage, which explores the idea of the message (information) being subordinated to the medium (material) by which it is transmitted. 50 years later, Arthur Jafa exhibits his film Love is The Message, The Message is Death – a collection of found footage accompanied by Kanye West’s Ultralight Beam song. The images depict global nature, local politics, ethical activism and ecological decline, police brutality and brutalist architecture. In quick succession, they present the world as a web of interconnected realities. However, our recent experience with hybrid wars suggests that information and the power, rather than the physical media, will become the most priced commodity of the future. Paradoxically though, this information can only be shared if the necessary tools are available.
“Information, not love, is the most precious gift I can give you, baby“
The leader of a group of men says:“This is my body, given for you”.This sentence is a part of a story that happened nearly 2000 years ago and was followed by one of the most significant political events in the history of mankind. From both semantic and metaphysical point of view, it is considered to be a contextual metaphor, a piece of information that largely gave rise to the world’s major religion.
Sitting in Benz, slouched but content
and touching the alpabet on the illuminated surface of my intelligent hand tool. The essentials of poetry create the text which you are now reading. And so we are connected.
Nikolas Bernáth
Imprint
| Artist | Alex Selmeci, Szilvia Bolla |
| Exhibition | My Body Is Your Body Too |
| Place / venue | VUNU Gallery, Košice |
| Dates | 27 March – 19 April |
| Curated by | Nikolas Bernáth |
| Website | vunu.sk |
| Index | Alex Selmeci Nikolas Bernáth Szilvia Bolla VUNU Gallery |