Being Social at Furtherfield Gallery

25 February - 28 April 2012 - Thursday to Saturday 12 noon - 3pm
Opening Event: Saturday 25 February 2012, 1-4pm
Press View: Friday 2 March 2012, 10-12 noon
rsvp: info@furtherfield.org

Being Social is the opening exhibition at Furtherfield Gallery in Finsbury Park in North London. Furtherfield has established an international reputation as London's first gallery for networked media art since 2004. With this exciting move to a more public space Furtherfield invites artists and techies - amateurs, professionals, celebrated stars and private enthusiasts - to engage with local and global, everyday and epic themes in a process of imaginative exchange.

This exhibition brings together artworks by emerging and internationally acclaimed artists: Annie Abrahams, Karen Blissett, Ele Carpenter, Emilie Giles, moddr_ , Liz Sterry and Thomson and Craighead.

Liz lives in England. Kay lives in Canada. Liz has been following Kay's blog for a while. Now she knows enough about Kay to build an exact physical copy of her bedroom and a lot more.

Annie has asked women of different nationalities to meet on their computer screens to communicate their anger in front of their webcams until there is no anger left.

Jon and Ali are listening to a collective stream of consciousness of people all around Finsbury Park, gathering their Tweets to print out and paste onto the new gallery walls.

The people at moddr_ wanted their real-lives back so they have built a machine to help them commit Web2.0 suicide, deleting their social media profiles.

Karen is an open, free and public multiple-personality and invites you to BE her.

Ele and Emilie are inviting people to join groups around the world in embroidering – word by word – a shared lexicon of terms about the Digital Commons.

Since the mid-90s computers have changed our way of being together. First the Internet then mobile networks have grown as cultural spaces for interaction - wild and banal, bureaucratic and controlling - producing new ways of 'being social'. Visitors are invited to view art installations, software art, networked performances and to get involved with creative activities to explore how our lives - personal and political - are being shaped by digital technologies.

Stitch a term with us!

Free activities for all ages (booking advisable) Saturday 10-1pm

Embroidered Digital Commons with Ele Carpenter and Emilie Giles
Furtherfield invites all gallery visitors to take part in one or more of our Saturday morning embroidery sessions and come together to stitch a term from the Raqs Media Collective’s text ‘A Concise Lexicon of/for the Digital Commons’ (2003), chosen in relation to the specific theme of the Being Social exhibition at Furtherfield Gallery. Throughout March and April 2012.

To book a place please contact Alessandra Scapin ale@furtherfield.org +44 (0) 2088022827

More information:
http://www.furtherfield.org/gallery
http://www.furtherfield.org/programmes/exhibition/being-social
http://www.furtherfield.org/programmes/activities/embroidered-digital-commons-workshops