TERMS AND CONDITIONS
January 18 - 29, 2021
Exhibition Statement
In curating TERMS AND CONDITIONS, we began by considering how bodies and art are transferred into the digital realm. How do the systems which give structure to networked connections govern how we interact with other bodies? As we ponder on the seemingly unbound potential that virtual spaces open up, we recognize that new opportunities come with a cost - there are always manipulatively hidden “terms and conditions” lingering just beneath the surface of our screens.
We have been forced into a new epoch - a time where we must renegotiate boundaries and limit our exposure to the physical world. We are currently situated in a time when distance is a necessity, yet closeness and connection are sought after more than ever. As the digital takes over, we are in constant conflict with our virtual self. We generate profiles and accounts, articulate information, and place trust in the computer and program. We abide by networks of communication and give consent to algorithms that curate our own ways of seeing and sharing data online. We upload, download, caption, stream, and delete content in rapture and resentment.
We need the digital as much as the digital needs us.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS is an exhibition that will take place in an exact three-dimensional digital rendering of the Hatch Art Gallery. Therefore, this virtual space resides on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples - Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō, Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations.
Exhibiting Artists
Curatorial Team
Jayden Dreher, Paige Braithwaite, Heloise Auvray, Maggie Wong, Erinne Huston, Jessica Girard, Miya Kosowic, Nandia Syabrina, Alger Liang, Wendy Hanlon and Charlotte Assier.
00:24 - 04:37 Matryoshka Through the Dark Glass
04:41 - 05:01 Avatar
05:05 - 05:23 Traces
05:30 - 07:46 “Palimpsest”
07:49 - 08:09 Invisible (but very tangible) Borders
08:13 - 08:33 1987 - Untitled (You've got Money to Burn)
08:36 - 09:39 Look Out
09:43 - 10:37 at the end of the road is a building
10:41 - 10:59 Who is Your Saviour?
Directors' Note:
The Hatch Art Gallery proudly presents the first exhibition of 2021 with the annual show curated and organized by the Visual Art Students’ Association. This show is an opportunity for the students of the Visual Art program to showcase recent works that reflect the atmosphere of the fine arts in and around UBC. The largest questions that surround students at this time are the nuances and negations of digital spaces, especially within an online learning environment.
For the purposes of this exhibition, the VASA team had the idea to reconstruct the Hatch Art Gallery fully within a virtual reality simulator. Therefore, physical artworks were scanned, or photographed and placed into the constructed reality as mere copies of their originals. This decision adds a new dimension to the online exhibition, as it points towards the prosthetic quality that an online exhibition often has. This somewhat removed and forced manner of looking at the works feels especially appropriate in relation to the concept of the exhibition, which already asks its viewers to consider their relationship to online place and space. In TERMS AND CONDITIONS, space itself is quite clearly constructed, but why must that mean that it is not physical?
The Visual Arts Students' Association would like to acknowledge and thank the many individuals who made this exhibition possible. Notably, the work of Erinne Huston for creating the digital rendering of the Hatch Gallery; Reiko Inouye for their creative direction; and James Albers for their knowledge and support.
To find out more about the Visual Arts Students' Association visit their website.