bottom鈥檚 just another floor
In what some call 鈥渢oo late capitalism鈥�, we are constantly promised seamless experiences鈥攅ffortless flows of information, frictionless consumption, and an ever-expanding horizon of technological progress. Yet, instead of smoothly gliding forward, we often find ourselves trapped, spinning in place, ensnared by weird coils. bottom's just another floor examines this unsettling condition: an almost hallucinatory 鈥渟tuckness鈥� that rubs against the glossy finish painted by tech oligarchs, leaving us dazed within a maze.
The exhibition invokes this feeling of slow-motion friction, a state of being stuck that exceeds mere inertia. It鈥檚 an eerie, but also somehow deeply stupid repetition reminiscent of the internet-conjured phenomenon of "backrooms," where every potential escape route quietly loops back into another version of the same creepy, corporate non-place. An apt metaphor, perhaps, for our numerous attempts at offering seeming alternatives to contemporary power-structures, with each trapdoor opening into yet another enclosure.
The works of Total Refusal collective, Anne de Vries, Jakub Choma, and Tomi Faison embody these sensations of entrapment with both critical urgency and playful irreverence, amplifying the paradoxes embedded in our everyday experience. 鈥淪tuckness鈥� reeks of failure, as it lays bare an underlying dullness and lack of direction 鈥� a moment of stoned clarity quickly retracted into familiar absurdity. Philosopher Thomas Nail understands our present political and economic system as a state of being 鈥渟tuck鈥� in one pattern of motion and wielding it violently against the rest of the world. The exhibition concurs with Nail鈥檚 thesis:
鈥淚 am not saying that Western civilization is unnatural to have gotten stuck and forced others to as well. Illness is just as natural as health.鈥�
To be clear, we do want to get 鈥渦nstuck鈥�, eventually. But instead of charting yet another flashy speculative escape, bottom's just another floor stays with the friction of stuckness, focusing on tensions and contradictions beneath the speeding surface. The visitors are invited to enter the loop, where every step may lead back to the start, and where we wager that what we thought was rock bottom might just be another floor.
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In what some call 鈥渢oo late capitalism鈥�, we are constantly promised seamless experiences鈥攅ffortless flows of information, frictionless consumption, and an ever-expanding horizon of technological progress. Yet, instead of smoothly gliding forward, we often find ourselves trapped, spinning in place, ensnared by weird coils. bottom's just another floor examines this unsettling condition: an almost hallucinatory 鈥渟tuckness鈥� that rubs against the glossy finish painted by tech oligarchs, leaving us dazed within a maze.
The exhibition invokes this feeling of slow-motion friction, a state of being stuck that exceeds mere inertia. It鈥檚 an eerie, but also somehow deeply stupid repetition reminiscent of the internet-conjured phenomenon of "backrooms," where every potential escape route quietly loops back into another version of the same creepy, corporate non-place. An apt metaphor, perhaps, for our numerous attempts at offering seeming alternatives to contemporary power-structures, with each trapdoor opening into yet another enclosure.
The works of Total Refusal collective, Anne de Vries, Jakub Choma, and Tomi Faison embody these sensations of entrapment with both critical urgency and playful irreverence, amplifying the paradoxes embedded in our everyday experience. 鈥淪tuckness鈥� reeks of failure, as it lays bare an underlying dullness and lack of direction 鈥� a moment of stoned clarity quickly retracted into familiar absurdity. Philosopher Thomas Nail understands our present political and economic system as a state of being 鈥渟tuck鈥� in one pattern of motion and wielding it violently against the rest of the world. The exhibition concurs with Nail鈥檚 thesis:
鈥淚 am not saying that Western civilization is unnatural to have gotten stuck and forced others to as well. Illness is just as natural as health.鈥�
To be clear, we do want to get 鈥渦nstuck鈥�, eventually. But instead of charting yet another flashy speculative escape, bottom's just another floor stays with the friction of stuckness, focusing on tensions and contradictions beneath the speeding surface. The visitors are invited to enter the loop, where every step may lead back to the start, and where we wager that what we thought was rock bottom might just be another floor.
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In what some have termed 鈥渢oo late capitalism鈥�, we are constantly promised seamless experiences鈥攅ffortless flows of information, frictionless consumption and an ever-expanding horizon of progress.
