For his exhibition with the gallery, Chinese Berlin based artist aaajiao seeks to face the infinitely expanding authority of computational power, and how its recent forms train us to have only feeble computing capabilities. Focusing on the internet, our closest and most visible form of computational power, aaajiao realizes works of art which track how people's behaviours are alienated from real life by the platform algorithms of the attention economy and the proliferation of pervasive ideological conflicts, turning life into merely an information bit, flickering and dancing. In the exhibition, aaajiao searches through the creation of video, paintings and sculpture for a void in such a system, for a void of the internet, where streams may still flow which dissociate from systemic authority, soothe our wounds, and dissolve these constructed configurations of distraction and hatred.
Active online as a media artist, blogger, activist and programmer, aaajiao is the virtual persona of Shanghai- and Berlin- artist Xu Wenkai. Born in 1984—the title of George Orwell's classic allegorical novel— and in one of China's oldest cities, Xi'an, aaajiao's art and works are marked by a strong dystopian awareness, literati spirits and sophistication. Many of aaajiao's works speak to new thinkings, controversies and phenomenon around the Internet, with specific projects focusing on the processing of data, the blogsphere and China's Great Fire Wall. aaajiao's recent projects extend his practice to various disciplines (among them, architecture, topography, and design) to capture the pulse of the young generation consuming cyber technology and living in social media.
Based in Düsseldorf, SETAREH presents a global selection of contemporary art by a selection of international and national artists, both established and emerging. Operating internationally, SETAREH stages its programme across four exhibition spaces. Two ventures in Düsseldorf, located on the Königsallee in Düsseldorf’s central district. Opening in 2016 as SETAREH X, the gallery’s third space serves SETAREH’s ongoing mission to support young, emerging artists from across the globe. The forth location opened in Berlin in 2021 in close proximity to the New National Gallery and will bring the spotlight on works by artists from all over the globe, focusing on those whose discourses add to the international art language, as well as enhance the reflection on the junction of artistic epochs, continuing the relevance of the canon.
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