Ondertussen: Waalko Dingemans and Jason File

3 September - 23 October 2016
Location: Hogewal 1-9, The Hague
Open: Monday - Friday, 11-5 pm; Saturday - Sunday, 12-5 pm
(until 15 October closed in the weekend)

In July-August 2015, Hague artists Waalko Dingemans and Jason File co-curated a group exhibition at GEMAK entitled The Observer Effect, which featured the work of seven recent graduates of the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) and the Chelsea College of Arts, London.

In science, the 'observer effect' refers to changes that the act of observation causes to a phenomenon being observed. This concept united the curators' mutual interest in how our observations and actions influence our perceptions in a networked world—a world where we are subjected to countless daily observations by institutions ranging from local to global, as our traces are recorded, analyzed, and, in some cases, fed back to us as suggestions anticipating our desires.

With this in mind, Dingemans and File sought to create an exhibition framework that responds flexibly to its audience, to capture the essence of this phenomenon and translate it into an artistic context. Beyond highlighting this development for the audience through individual artists' works, the exhibition took the form of open-ended social experimentation within an institutional exhibition environment.

At the first opening, the curators gathered data from the audience with questionnaires, categorized and studied the way they physically navigated the exhibition with dedicated data-gatherers. They asked them to curate a specific room of the exhibition themselves using artwork components supplied by the participating artists, and they controlled visitors' access to certain areas according to color-coded 'VIP' categories. Midway through the run of the exhibition, it was re-opened with museum barriers that directed visitors along a single pathway for the 'average' visitor according to the data.

Ondertussen presents video documentation of the two openings, along with video interviews of the participating artists, samples and analysis of collected data, photographs of the audience-curated room, and assorted physical artifacts from the exhibition.

The Observer Effect was realized with support from Stroom Den Haag in the form of a SPOT Groepstentoonstelling subsidy and a PRO Deo subsidy for curatorial advice, which was provided by curator Suzanne Wallinga.

LINKS
www.waalkodingemans.nl
www.jasonfile.com
www.gemak.org

Ondertussen
The Ondertussen space links Stroom's exhibition program to its enabling policy for artists. This policy aims to strengthen and improve the visibility of The Hague's artistic climate. Presentations in Ondertussen are usually the result of subsidies provided by Stroom, but can also show the results of mediation by Stroom or of other stimulating activities. The presentations are intended to illustrate the diversity of the grant applications and the positive effect of our enabling policy for artists. The presentations can vary from (interim) reports of (research) projects and residencies to network presentations. The Ondertussen presentation is the responsibility of the applicant.

Archive Ondertussen presentations

PERS
Frieze.com, 19 september 2016

03 Sep '16 - 23 Oct '16
Stroom Den Haag, Hogewal 1-9, The Hague
Entrance: free