Total Transparency
October 28th - November 12th 2010
Location 1: 33-35 Commercial Road
Location 2: Gaengeviertel Hamburg
[Info on Participation click here]
1.
Transparency, as the opposite of opacity, can be defined the quality of a medium to channel information, eg. in the form of light waves, between subject and object.
With the invention of X-Rays, objects prior considered opaque suddenly became transparent.
A lense is as transparent as a sheet of glass, but the effect on the object perceived behind the lense is not the same. And a non-transparent object may still permit information to pass through.
Something perfectly transparent will be invisible; a thing completely opaque will define the borders of our knowledge. Are there tranparent beings, beyond our perception? Is there an existance beyond our horizon, like the border between life and death, which many consider opaque?
How can we define tranparency? Are there degrees of transparency? What usage do we make of this very word in epistemology, in political theory, in physics, and in art? Are there degrees of transparency, is there a continuum between total transparency and total opacity, or are there categories of transparency? Can total transparency exist?
Transparency seems to be an intrinsic quality of the universe, and without transparency information flow, perception, and intelligent existence can hardly be imagined.
Can we find expressions or usages of it in art which will enlarge our understanding of transparency?
Jan
2.
In a culture of continual surveillance do we have any choice but to be transparent?
Political transparency, does this even exist within politics and government in our society today?
Does propaganda of the media used to control the population lead to conspiracy theories?
In our homes, our only refuge from the watching eyes and prying ears of the thought police, why do we chose to blog away our only moments of privacy?
If we fail to document and publicly announce our every movement will we cease to exist to the eye of society? Will we ourselves become transparent to the point of invisibility?
Is there a lack of emotional transparency in relationships? To be honest with yourself and therefore transparent with others as requirement for mental health, the term total transparency being used in counseling.
For those of us hoping for a more ethical approach to business as far as for example green issues go; is the fact that corporations function as entities with know culpability allow them to remain invisible and therefore never actually change there practice?
Amelia, Jo + Abbie
3.
No other country in the world has as much video surveillance as the UK. On the other hand, there still is no central data base of citizens, no obligation to register, and no obligation to carry or even have papers proving one's identity (ID cards). This is in a stark contrast to the German practise where a central registration has been in existence since fascist times, dating back to the Prussian invention of ID cards. In Germany, totale Erfassung (total registration) is getting ever closer with topics such as the newly introduced central database of wages and earnings. On the other hand, public distrust of video surveillance has so far stopped video surveillance from becoming as widespread as in Britain.
Are these two different forms of the same process? Are both exemplars of the ever increasing ability of governmental and police institutions to monitor the movements and acts of the populace? Does the public collude in one form or another? We are posting freely and happily the most delicate details about our lives on social networking sites. In Britain information is collected and controlled by social networking sites and surveillance, whereas in Germany, forms of information collection and control take the shape of ID cards and central databases.
How do we, as individuals, and as artists, react to this? Are there answers and new questions on this topic in the artistic practise? What can we learn from each others quite different experiences in the our home countries for a pan-European debate?
Jan
Press Release