Invisible Threads: Technology and its Discontents, NYUAD Art Gallery

Artists: Ai Weiwei, Jamie Allen, Aram Bartholl, Taysir Batniji, Wafaa Bilal, Liu Bolin, Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Michael Joaquin Grey, Monira Al Qadiri, Evan Roth, Phillip Stearns, Siebren Versteeg, Addie Wagenknecht, Kenny Wong.

On view September 22 – December 31, 2016

This exhibition explores the tensions that emerge in our everyday relationships with technology, looking at such issues as isolation vs. connectedness, and privacy vs. social media.

The information age has given us modes and means of communication unrivaled in history, ranging from smartphones and social media to electronic financial and other transactions. Yet these same tools also generate anxiety about a user’s exposure via these modes, whether to risk of hackers or from technology’s effect on our environment.

Invisible Threads will present a nuanced discussion of a global topic, framed by the region’s complex relationship to the benefits and pitfalls that accompany technological advances. The artworks expose these institutional and aesthetic frameworks of control, pulling back the curtain on a part of our lives that we have come to take for granted. The curators hope to generate dialog and reflection around our use of these everyday tools.

Jamie Allen‘s The Lie Machine project is a critical, media archaeological recreation of a 1970’s vintage lie detection technical object, a Voice Stress Analysis machine.

Notably, Invisible Threads inaugurates one of NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery’s unique program strategies: inviting scholars and specialists from across the academic spectrum to guest-curate a major exhibition. Invisible Threads is co-curated by Professor Scott Fitzgerald, Program Head of Interactive Media at NYU Abu Dhabi, with Bana Kattan, a Curator at the NYUAD Art Gallery.

For more information on the exhibition please click here.

For more information on Jamie Allen’s work please click here.