Time & Technology

plan b (Sophia New & Daniel Belasco Rogers)
Navigating the Everyday

Vernissage: 27 January 2012, 8PM
Exhibition runs from 28 January - 11 March, 2012
Opening Hours: Fr - Su, 2-6PM
Open also on 24 February from 2-10 PM with a tour through the exhibition with the artists (7.30 PM)

In the first half of 2012 Art Laboratory Berlin will present the exhibition Series Time & Technology, a reflection of how the radical technological changes of the last 20 years have influenced our perception of time and how we plan and structure our lives.

Navigating the Everyday presents works by plan b, the British artist duo Daniel Belasco Rogers and Sophia New, and is their first solo exhibition in Germany. Since 2003 and 2007 respectively, Daniel and Sophia have been recording every journey they make every day using GPS devices. Additionally all areas of their digital communication (e.g. mobile phone text messages) are evaluated and processed artistically. Their work represents an artistic research by means of a digital archiving of their movements.

Over the years this practice has become part of everyday life, a form of private and personal 'sousveillance', in which the artists generate their own data, thereby reflecting the approach of those private and public agencies who collect all available data.

Since January 2011, the artists have also recorded their moods in writing three times a day. This mood diary enables them to compare their emotional life with the GPS traces of their movements and collected text messages. Presentation of the act of remembrance, in human and machine form, provides material for the two-channel video installation Narrating Our Lines, shown here in full for the first time. The video installation shows the artists viewing an animation of the GPS traces of their movements from 2007. With a temporal distance of three years, they then recall past events of their lives through these traces. On one screen, the viewer can see the artists, while on the other we see what the artists see - the GPS traces of their movement. A striking tension is achieved, while they (re)construct the common narrative of their lives.

In addition to this installation, additional objects are presented, which have resulted from their practice of collecting: an archive of their mobile text messages, lists of personal vocabulary based on the frequency of use, as well as journals of their fluctuating moods arranged by season, time of day and location of each of the artists.

Curated by Regine Rapp and Christian de Lutz.

press text as .pdf

Time Technology - Some Theoretical Considerations (.pdf)

Special thanks to Peter Vasil.