Time of Suspicion offers no Escape
Museum of Modern Art, MAM, Mexico
Tiempo de sospecha: un ejercicio sobre comunicación mediática, sistemas de conocimiento e información (Time of Suspicion: An exercise in Media Communication, Knowledge and Information Systems) at the Museum of Modern Art (MAM) in Mexico City, is an exhibition that navigates how vast networks of information are disseminated through mass media—through the perspective of 35 contemporary artists from Mexico.
Curated by MAM curator Víctor Palacios, he begins his exhibition statement with the phrase “No Way Out”. This encapsulates the overarching theme of the exhibition that describes a world indistinguishable from mass media and integrated with cyber forms of communication. Within this overarching theme there are numerous subthemes that tackle vast aspects of communication today, from traditional forms such as print and text to the Internet and its ever-evolving uses. One such online exploration is a video by Leo Marz that features three masked actors reenacting an online chat. The colloquial dialogue of the chat messages when spoken aloud, creates a stunted and coded conversation between people, both familiar and strangers, that is detached and isolated. By attributing a physical form to this mode of communication, Marz highlights the substantial fragmentation of the ‘chat’ experience.
The exhibition is laid out in a serious of twists and turns, mimicking the sprawling maze of communication networks to be navigated everyday. In this way, the inescapable inundation of media within our daily lives is alienating in its complexity and unruliness. Yet, depending on the generation you are from, there are moments of familiarity where artists have used traditional media, such as records, newspapers and books that offer a safety net to a vast and endless topic. One such work, “According to Google” by artist Emilio Chapela Perez, is series of “look books’ compiled of all the images affiliated with a word when typed into Google search. Each volume is titled after its word, ranging from “Beauty” to “Artist” and “Collector”, and document the randomness of how search criteria determines how information is collated online.
By questioning the authenticity of the information received through media forms, the exhibition begs the questions, how has our interface with technology changed our relationship to social interaction, politics and an understanding of civil society? Underpinned by images of violence, often as reflected by local media, Time of Suspicion makes clear that mass media communication is integrated in to contemporary artistic practices in Mexico today—and there is truly “No Way Out”.
