Exhibition texts
“Transparency”
Galleri Pictura (SE)
4/12 2015-16/1 2016
In the exhibition «Transparency», the artist duo Knaggi presents the ongoing work «#knaggi». The exhibition consists of prints mounted on aluminum poster frames. The concept behind the work is that they document every photo on Instagram which has been tagged with the hashtag ”Knaggi” in chronological order. On social media, hashtags mark keywords and are used to categorize images, messages or topics. Each photo is repeated in its original size as it appears on an iPhone screen by the number of likes it has received. Meaning, that if a photo has recieved 14 likes, the image is repeated 14 times. Each print is 100 x 100 cm and is big enough to create a mosaic of images. The images are stacked vertically in chronological order, continuing onto the next print when the surface has been filled. The work combines both the automatic generation of content, personal spheres, digital personas and archival methods which are done by hand.
Knaggi is interested in the physicality and the archival aspect of these ephemeral images, originally intended to have a short life of a quick “scroll”. They have been active users of Instagram the last couple of years after graduating, and have been documenting their lives as an artist duo traveling to residencies and doing exhibitions in various places. As the project grows and their friends and the audience is becoming more aware of the impact they have on the project (a larger number of ”likes” results in a larger number of prints), it is their intent to explore and question the value of the ”like” and what value it has to our identities that now is being lived both online and offline. This exhibition materializes this digital content, which was only created to exist and circulate in «the cloud», in order to give solid form to the products of our increasingly interconnected minds.
“Distance”
Oslo Prosjektrom (NO)
19/2-8/3 2015
In the exhibition “Distance”, the artist duo Knaggi enters the digital realm using smartphone technology, apps and social media to explore the ethical, evolutionary, cultural and social implications of living and co-existing with the internet and technology as a presence in our everyday lives. Contemporary culture envelopes us in virtual reality, and while the substance it consists of may be ethereal, the contents exist in reality and have substantial influence beyond the confines of the computer. It is on those boundaries of the digital and the physical which the majority of their collaborative work takes place.
“Malmö to Hagskaret”
Galleri 2 (Lofoten, NO)
6/3-9/4 2014
During our stay at Kunstkvarteret in Lofoten, we have collaborated on a project which focuses on digital cartography and social media. The work explores the function of the map in a world where the cellphone is little by little becoming the chief way of navigation, both in the physical world and in life itself. Malmö to Hagskaret is, in essence, a collection of travel journals, a documentation of journeys undertaken by the two; Of journeys taken together and separately, physically and virtually. Before you are the rigorously documented and detailed memories, preserved digitally, of a long distance trudge through airports, airplanes, boats, coffee shops and highways, of waking up in a new place, of partaking digitally in outlandish ceremonies, of traveling between locations on foot.
The destination is as important as getting there and the means of getting there. The rigorous structure captures a plethora of random things which would otherwise have been forgotten almost as soon as they happened. A cup of tea drunk from a paper cup, a magazine article in an airplane, a cellphone being charged on the floor of a ferry, a board game played on a laptop onboard a rocking boat, a pinch of tobacco before being searched for weapons at an airport. All of these are things which our brains wouldn’t prioritize as important, memorable or worthy of thorough documentation. It is a gathering of near-random snapshots of mundane objects which, when gathered and assembled, form a detailed mosaic which become a much more interesting whole. It should not be forgotten that travel by plane, train or boat is, for most humans, by no means a mundane thing or an everyday event.
Documentation made using smartphones does not only store information in an image. When the image is snapped, the file created stores information about both the picture and the photographer. An image snapped on an iphone can reveal many things, such as the operating system, the exact GPS coordinates of where the photo was taken, down to the exact second the picture was taken, the phonenumber and even the identity of the owner of the phone through the registration info. As a society, we’ve collectively made peace with “Big Brother” and decided that the benefits of living with smartphones and constant connectivity outweigh the risks.