Information Skies is the first UK solo exhibition by the Dutch art and design studio Metahaven. Opening concurrently at Mumbai Art Room, it is also the collective’s first exhibition in India. Metahaven’s 2016 film project Information Skies (24 minutes, HD video) weaves new realities informed by VR. Through a dramatisation of this experiential technology, using live footage and animation, concepts of authenticity and lived experience are positioned as fictional provocations. How might we understand ‘truth’ and ‘law’ in a world of infinitely self-producing belief systems?
Alongside Information Skies, Auto Italia will present Metahaven’s documentary film installation The Sprawl (Propaganda About Propaganda), a 70-minute dive into online and offline truths, fictions,and their sponsors. Guided by commentary of Benjamin H. Bratton, Maryam Monalisa Gharavi and Peter Pomerantsev, The Sprawl (Propaganda About Propaganda) identifies how planetary-scale interface culture is transforming geopolitics and state power. Taken together, The Sprawl and Information Skies become a new cinematic topography, creating fragmented territories of images and suggestions, and building a worldview that is at once attractive and terrifying.
Metahaven’s 2016 film Information Skies was commissioned by the 11th Gwangju Biennale.
Metahaven is a collective of artists and designers founded by Vinca Kruk and Daniel van der Velden operating on the intersections of design, aesthetics and politics. Part studio and think-tank, Metahaven’s pedagogical practice becomes public across design, theory, exhibitions, publications, lectures, and filmmaking.
Metahaven’s recent solo presentations include ‘The Sprawl’ Lighthouse, Brighton (2016), ‘The Sprawl’ YCBA, San Fransisco (2016), ‘Islands in the Clouds’ MoMa PS1, New York (2013), ‘WikiLeaks Dark Store’, Artists Space at abc Berlin (2012). Recent publications include ‘Black Transparency’ (2015), ‘Can Jokes Bring Down Governments (2013), ‘VOID MYSTIQUE DNA’ in collaboration with Auto Italia and Deterritorial Support Group (DSG) (2013), ‘Uncorporate Identity’ (2010), and ‘White Night Before A Manifesto’ (2010).
