{"id":5424,"date":"2015-11-24T10:34:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T10:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/works.raqsmediacollective.net\/?p=5424"},"modified":"2024-10-17T11:54:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-17T11:54:58","slug":"art-in-the-age-of-collective-intelligence-if-the-world-is-a-fair-place-then","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/works.raqsmediacollective.net\/index.php\/2015\/11\/24\/art-in-the-age-of-collective-intelligence-if-the-world-is-a-fair-place-then\/5424","title":{"rendered":"Art in the age of collective intelligence & If the world is a fair place then.."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Art in the Age of Collective Intelligence <\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
If The World is a Fair Place Then<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Art in the Age of Collective Intelligence<\/strong><\/em>
<\/em><\/strong>Shown at: Adam Aronson Gallery, Laumier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, Missouri (2015) <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

40 photo prints on Moab metallic silver paper, giclee
24 inches x 24 inches each<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Art in the Age of Collective Intelligence<\/em>\u00a0consists of 40 image prints that gloss Raqs\u2019\u00a0reading and cultivation of libraries.\u00a0An iteration of the responses to the\u00a0question that Raqs had posed \u2014 \u201cIf the\u00a0world was a fair place, then\u2026?\u201d- was\u00a0a rendered as bookmarks, which in their\u00a0place became the basis for the 40 entries\u00a0that constitute this work. Layered texts\u00a0within the images and books examine the ideas of \u2018fairness\u2019 and \u2018unfairness\u2019, using\u00a0cut out fragments of passages as shadowed\u00a0insertions, leaving both physical and\u00a0contextual marks. These were produced\u00a0as photographic prints, which were then\u00a0inserted into the open pages of books in the\u00a0personal libraries of Raqs.\u00a0In this way the work became a bearer of\u00a0two levels of reading a symptom in the world. A \u2018reading\u2019 of what people think of as fairness of justice, and then using that \u2018reading\u2019 to annotate further levels of reading – within the expanding ambit of curiosity that constitutes Raqs\u2019s continuing process of reading and thinking. What this focuses on is the way in which \u2018reading\u2019 practices in Raqs are also a way of eavesdropping and whispering, of note taking and re-reading, or parsing a collective intelligence which touches us all, and which we all contribute to.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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If the World is a Fair Place Then<\/strong><\/em>
<\/em><\/strong>Shown at: Exhibited at Laumier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, Missouri (2015)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laser cut steel bands, words<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

If the World is a Fair Place Then<\/em> parses a collection of phrases solicited from people in St.Louis, Missouri in the United States of America, in response to a query posed\u00a0by Raqs that said, \u201cIf the world were a fair place, then\u2026\u201d. This work was undertaken in the wake of racial violence in Ferguson (a suburb of St. Louis). The question proposed and posed by Raqs addresses both the recent history of racial violence as well as the historical legacy of the St. Louis World\u2019s Fair (by way of a play on the word \u2018fair\u2019- standing in both for a carnival, as well as a sense of justice, or fairness). The responses to the question, which ranged from the outraged to the thoughtful to the whimsical to the affectionate, were collated, and a selection was chosen for rendition. 40 stainless steel bands etched with various thoughts, feelings and ideas from the responses encircle tree trunks along Laumeier\u2019s Art Hike Trail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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