LAB[AU] | UQAM: GROUP SHOW

LAb[au] exhibited their work What Hath God Wrought in the group exhibition DataffectS at the gallery of the University of Quebec in Montreal.

Bringing together a wide range of artistic practices, DataffectS examines questions of telecommunications by exploring the space we allow them, their hazards, flaws and excesses, and how we are affected by them, and by the idea of hyper-connection. In this regard, curator Nathalie Bachand wonders “what does this state of hyper-connection – or the lack of it – reveal other than that our perception of reality is inevitably influenced by the interference exerted by digital technology on our daily lives, and by the expectation of it when it is absent.”

Data is at the heart of our digital means of communication. It carries and transport our affects – our sensory and lived experiences – through various information transfer processes. From the pre-digital telegraph to the Internet, geolocation to satellite, the ways by which we communicate show a relationship with language. The latter is changing and becoming ever more abstract – eventually becoming a sequence of 0s and 1s. The other side of the picture reveals that these transmission practices are not without consequence: labour, exploitation and ecological degradation are often the hidden side of the equation.