Aesthetics of the Non-visible

Image by Edson Chagas, Found Not Taken, 2014. Courtesy the artist and A Palazzo Gallery, Brescia, Italy

After seeing on the internet the Russian Ark (2002), a film by Akexander Sokurov, in where "a 19th century French aristocrat, notorious for his scathing memoirs about life in Russia, travels through the Russian State Hermitage Museum and encounters historical figures from the last 200+ years", the first thought that came into my mind was the idea of Noah's Ark being a big, transitional USB pen packed with data; or, an aesthetic white cube, in where data is storage and displayed for buyers, just like the data storage centres are immaculate spaces free of that amazing external and timeless thing that dust is. The second significant idea derived is towards works by such artists as, Andreas Schmidt, who creates books that function as physical archives for non-physical images; Dina Kelbermann, who display images contaminated by the non-visible, through associations that are mediated by the archive in itself; or, Mishka Henner' confrontation and creation of new subjectivities. All playing with photography and the act of not take photographs, as well as, instead of a "find the differences" between two 'equal' images, we have to find what relates and connects together in what seems to be different images, i.e., find what is 'equal'. Establishing an alternate archive and interfere in how we set our gaze.
Following the ICA' Artists' Film Biennial 2014 Symposium on Aesthetics of the Non-visible...

[Lunch for £11 at the ICA bar]