I took a screenshot of the whole world , an exhibition by Ruba Al-Sweel. From January 12 to 27, Exhibition from January 12 to 27, Visit of the exhibition every Wednesday pm and Saturday 4pm and 5pm. Mandatory registration. I wanna be software. I poured myself into a vessel again. Living in the heat of the screen. Engulfed in the smooth of silky reflective skin. Info wars wage. I dig my nails deeper in fiber optics of a collective noosphere.
A body. The cold blue of static bleeds through the frame. All light and no blood. Homes of crystal lattice. Hospitable dwellings. Long live the new flesh. Titled after the research of RitualStudies by artist girlm0ss, I took a screenshot of the whole world brings together works by 19 artists influenced by living and working with and through the screen.
A material reality in their own right, the images β static or in motion β portray reality as much as they create it. Not necessarily a scale model of reality, nor a prerequisite, but simply a parody that finds host in reality itself. Video, everywhere, serves only this end: it is a screen of ecstatic refraction. As such, it has nothing of the traditional image or scene, or of traditional theatricality, and its purpose is not to present action or allow self-contemplation; its goal is to be hooked up to itself.
Without this circular hookup, without this brief, instantaneous network that a brain, an object, an event, or a discourse create by being hooked up to themselves, without this perpetual video, nothing has any meaning today. The mirror phase has given way to the video phase.
