»I Don‘t Care. I Love My Phone.« Kunstsammlung SAP Presents Works From 2017-2020

The latest art exhibition Elias Wessel – I Don‘t Care. I Love My Phone curated by Alexandra Cozgarea at the Kunstsammlung SAP in Walldorf, Germany presents encompassing works taken from three different series created by the artist between 2017-2020: Die Summe meiner Daten [The Sum of My Data] (2017), Images Through an Algorithmic Lens – Zur Visualisierung der Wirklichkeit [Visualizing Reality] (2018-19) and Schöne neue Welt [Brave New World] (2019-20). The exhibition sheds light on our relationship with smartphones. As part of this process, it explores topics such as digitization and questions relating to online surveillance and identity, while also challenging the credibility of photography. The exhibition is on display from January 28 - July 30, 2021 (extended until April 30, 2022). A virtual tour can be experienced here.

Exhibition poster of Elias Wessel – I Don’t Care. I Love My Phone, showing a detail of Schöne neue Welt, No. 1. (2019-20) Kunstsammlung SAP, Walldorf, Germany. January 28 - July 30, 2021 (all images © Elias Wessel and VG Bild-Kunst Bonn with courtesy of EWS New York and the Kunstsammlung SAP, 2021)

Installation view of Elias Wessel – I Don’t Care. I Love My Phone at the Kunstsammlung SAP, Walldorf, Germany. The image is showing parts of the three exhibited series Die Summe meiner Daten (left), Images Through an Algorithmic Lens – Zur Visualisierung der Wirklichkeit (center) and Schöne neue Welt (right).

Die Summe meiner Daten [The Sum of My Data] (2017) began in 2015 as a visual response to the tension between fascination, wonder and anxiety generated by the technological development and its impact on the societal and political appearance of our time. The traces marks and fingerprints in the photographs result from a functional interaction between the human being and our todays communication devices. From the everyday use of smartphones and tablets. Artistic strategies – within the limits of the medium of photography – make perceptible the seemingly hidden and result into three consecutive series (Off-, On- and B/W Series) consisting of a total of 52 images. The superimposing structures of the artists own but also others people’s digital devices culminate into palimpsest-like, painterly-appearing photographs that document the simultaneity of digitization, surveillance and identity.

Installation view showing works from Die Summe meiner Daten [The Sum of My Data] – On Series (2017)

Image of Die Summe meiner Daten – On Series, No. 6 (2017), color photograph, 217,7 x 164 cm (framed)

Lot of nine works of Die Summe meiner Daten – B/W Series, 2017 (small format edition of the eleven image series)

Images Through an Algorithmic Lens – Zur Visualisierung der Wirklichkeit [Visualizing Reality] (2018-19): We live in a time where vast quantities of images are made that do not claim to be art. They claim to be something much more doubtful, because they claim to be reality. We think the photo shows pure reality, but it doesn’t, because the camera sees geometrically, for one thing, and “computational photography” is now built into every new smartphone. We, however, see only partly geometrically, but also psychologically, and not at all in the way that algorithms in our cameras calculate when we take a photo. In Images Through an Algorithmic Lens, photographs executed unconventionally using panorama mode are no longer represented as usual by their underlying algorithm and thus become complex images of landscapes and urban spaces. Occasionally, there are references to visual reality in the abstraction, which establishes a connection between the image and our everyday life. But the abstract “misrepresentations” reduce our perception of concrete realities to that fundamental common denominator that all humans can agree on: sensuality. Therefore, each of these 13 images claims to be a more convincing representation of reality than the perfectly calculated images of our digital magic boxes. For images that strive to depict every little detail merely cloud our view of a higher reality.

Image of Images Through an Algorithmic Lens – Zur Visualisierung der Wirklichkeit , IMG–4276 (2018-19) at the Kunstsammlung SAP. Color photograph, 243 x 163 cm (framed)

Works from the small format edition of Images Through an Algorithmic Lens – Zur Visualisierung der Wirklichkeit (2018-19) at the Kunstsammlung SAP

Schöne neue Welt [Brave New World] (2019-20) is a series that started in New York City shortly before the outbreak of the pandemic and that was finished late 2020. Therein, smartphones are being destroyed in every conceivable way – run over by a bus, thrown against walls, maltreated with a hammer, drowned, set on fire, burned. The displays are badly affected but the photographed misrepresentations become aesthetically accessible. The artist is thinking about how difficult it becomes psychologically to destroy these magic boxes and how they almost transform into living creatures. But he also questions if destruction is an integral part of beauty as opposed to how destruction can turn into something beautiful.

Installation view of Schöne neue Welt – 3rd Generation Edition (2019-20) at the Kunstsammlung SAP

Image of Schöne neue Welt, No. 1 (2019-20), color photograph, 214,9 x 161,6 cm (framed)

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