Pandemic is a rupture. It is an interruption of our everyday life, habitual patterns of thinking, daily cycles of actions. Here it is crucial to realize – in this rupture – that it is these very everydaylife/patterns of thinking/actions that have led us to the pandemic in the first place, and for that matter all other catastrophes we are facing, of which Covid is just a forerunner of the approaching Tsunami. Will we change now or stay on chilling at the beach as usual? The American elections showed that the wheel is going to spin the same way, bouncing between the same fixed oppositions with no prospect of moving up, to the next floor in the building of existence. And aren’t we all waiting for this isolation to end, so that we can finally return to…. Where? To the same! To the same “beach”.
Now, in searching for an opening - like an opening in the wall, an opening in the fixed grid of our minds – we turn to art. Because along its 30,000 years of existence its true function has always been to bring the rupture in existent order, realizing the new perspectives. We turn to Digital Art, because, yes, we are pushed to it, but at the same time its accessibility, its speed, its proximity maybe what we need right now. To initiate, to launch our search for Art Spirit in the Digital Dimension we turn to Glitch Art because in the very narrow sense it works with the acceptance of unpredictability, interruption, shift…glitch…all those necessary steps that the mind needs to follow to transform itself and move away from the obliteration.
In this, hopefully long, Odyssey into the borderless Digital Dimension, we have encountered and present to you the first digital artist, Mathieu St-Pierre. We wanted to start with him because Mathieu is a good man and a pioneer artist. You can see it for yourself. Take a look at the video we made where we talked about his life and work, as well as Neo Tokyo, Face Glitches, “Predator”, Pornography, Ankoku Butoh, and Lacanian Pot. He was born in Canada but moved to Korea many years ago. Mathieu started with glitch videos and moved to experiments with spam, collage, music, and new glitch techniques. Initiating the Glitch Artist Collective on Facebook with more than 80,000 members he stayed connected to the larger community of artists observing the tendencies and changes over time. In this digital show, that starts now and will always stay where it is, we present the works from all of his major series spanning a decade. They will be presented as a video, as a slide show, and in a PDF catalog with the link to the exhibition web page.
And the last thing. We buy art not just so we can hang it on the wall in the living room. Let us put it this way, with no attempt to trick you with words. If you see that voting doesn’t free you from the wheel of repetition into a new future, consider voting for good artists and those who support them. At least here you can be sure that your vote will be counted and will be put toward the creation of the foundation of alternative reality for all of us: something, it seems, that Art - rolling up its sleeves – have to do.
