Too Much World (Anxiety in a Post Digital World) is an immersive and interactive installation about Anxiety. Join us on May 30 between 5-8pm when we transform one of the rooms at the Cookhouse Gallery into a bedroom for the duration of the show. Various video and sculptural works are staged within this environment, depicting experiences of anxiety from different angles and through different media. The room is also imbued with countless personal items contributed by the featuring artists who have had experiences with anxiety.
The title of the show is inspired by German artist/theorist, Hito Steyerl’s seminal writing, ‘Too Much World: Is the Internet Dead?’. The exhibition continues her exploration of the dark side of technology, portraying the overwhelming world we receive through different screens of technological devices.
Within Steyerl's framework, she lays emphasis on the notion that the world we live in is saturated with digital images that are constantly been edited and filtered via postproduction. Not only these images are overwhelming and anxiety inducing, but also they constantly migrate across screens and merge into our reality.They materialise as consumer goods that we own, altering physical places we occupy; they control who we are and what we want to be, and this does not even begin to scope what technology is capable of.
We have all seen too much world.
This exhibition is a collaboration between Chelsea College of Arts and Sotheby’s Institute of Art. Curated by Anni Li, participating artists include Emily Mulenga, Bo Fan, Paul Chisholm, Qiaoer Jin, Rita Castanheira and Thomas Walker depicting anxiety through their personal experiences through different media and angels.The exhibition aims to confront the beholder’s relationship to technology, and draw attention to its relation to anxiety.