Date
Title
March 2025
Visions of Fading
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First paragraph from Visions of Fading, March 2025
This morning, as I was scrolling through the news, one of the headlines in Libération grabbed my attention. A panel of US citizens had shared their views on the situation in their country. The headline was: “It Doesn’t Feel Real, It Feels Like a Simulation.” Indeed, in recent months, I have often heard people around me say that they feel that what is happening can’t be true. The shape of recent events, and not just in the USA, is reminiscent of plots in numerous films that we’ve seen, stories that have served as the basis for dystopian fiction. But this might be too simple as an explanation: the mutual influence between mainstream politics and the dream factory. It can’t be the only reason why, in my insomnia, I am feeling invaded by thoughts that I don’t want to have. While the physical borders in the world are closing, those between reality and fiction seem to dissolve; what I’m seeing, then, is something like an invisible dam flooded by a storm of simulacra. And when I am finally falling asleep, images of destruction come again and visit me in dreams. Mark Fisher said that what is called the real world is a form of collective dreaming. I am still trying to understand what that means. Did he, in the 2010s and with the help of sci-fi writers that he loved, anticipate the anxiety dream that we are currently experiencing? Or is it that the simulation became reality and Fisher’s statement kind of reversed? Many things we thought only possible in fiction turn out to be happening in real life. Even dreams are endangered. I am wondering what kind of technology could oppose these forces. Art, perhaps.
Date
March 2025
Title
Visions of Fading
Curated by
Mendes Wood DM
Artists
Yann Chateigné Tytelman
Press Release
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First paragraph from Visions of Fading, March 2025
This morning, as I was scrolling through the news, one of the headlines in Libération grabbed my attention. A panel of US citizens had shared their views on the situation in their country. The headline was: “It Doesn’t Feel Real, It Feels Like a Simulation.” Indeed, in recent months, I have often heard people around me say that they feel that what is happening can’t be true. The shape of recent events, and not just in the USA, is reminiscent of plots in numerous films that we’ve seen, stories that have served as the basis for dystopian fiction. But this might be too simple as an explanation: the mutual influence between mainstream politics and the dream factory. It can’t be the only reason why, in my insomnia, I am feeling invaded by thoughts that I don’t want to have. While the physical borders in the world are closing, those between reality and fiction seem to dissolve; what I’m seeing, then, is something like an invisible dam flooded by a storm of simulacra. And when I am finally falling asleep, images of destruction come again and visit me in dreams. Mark Fisher said that what is called the real world is a form of collective dreaming. I am still trying to understand what that means. Did he, in the 2010s and with the help of sci-fi writers that he loved, anticipate the anxiety dream that we are currently experiencing? Or is it that the simulation became reality and Fisher’s statement kind of reversed? Many things we thought only possible in fiction turn out to be happening in real life. Even dreams are endangered. I am wondering what kind of technology could oppose these forces. Art, perhaps.