TICK TACK is excited to announce AUTOPOIESIS, the inaugural Belgian solo exhibition of the renowned Amsterdam-based artist collective Metahaven, presenting a series of textile works alongside two films. The show opens on September 15 and is on view until October 28 at Mechelsesteenweg 247 in Antwerp.
Founded in the late 2000s by Vinca Kruk and Daniel van der Velden, Metahaven are known for their interweaving of information technologies, geopolitics, and philosophy, as well as poetry, fiction, and storytelling. Through their pioneering, yet subtle, future-forward practice, they explore the uncharted and undeclared regimes of visual culture, being one of this domain’s most compelling voices. Metahaven has established a remarkable presence with solo exhibitions at esteemed institutions including ICA, London; MoMA PS1, New York and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and group shows including the Gwangju Biennale and Sharjah Biennial, among others.
Autopoiesis is **a concept introduced in 1972 by the Chilean evolutionary biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela and describes the notion of “self-creation.”
The exhibition encompasses film and textile works, highlighting a constant interconnectedness between cognition and feeling. By combining digital aesthetics with weaving and embroidery, narrative and machine craft, the textile pieces challenge boundaries between the virtual and the tangible, between modes of experience, whilst the film works explore the affective intersections between cinema and texture.
The film works Chaos Theory (2021) **and Information Skies (2016) **are shown on large TVs on the first and ground floors respectively. Chaos Theory is a meditation on children, ground truth, and daydreaming, whereas Information Skies, a 2017 nominee for the European Film Awards, explores sincere, yet fictional emotional immersion within virtual reality.
TICK TACK’s nocturnal CINEMA program sets the stage for the specially edited scene of Metahaven’s film Capture (2021), a speculative and poetic narrative alongside philosophical, scientific and everyday-life questions. Daily, from sunset to sunrise, this scene will be projected into the public space (and live-streamed online).
Metahaven also takes part in the second edition of the nomadic exhibition project Publiek Park, public programme which brings together culture, nature and heritage in three neighbouring green public spaces across TICK TACK: Harmonie Park, Albert Park and the garden of the Provinciehuis. At the fruit section of a local corner store, Verma Supermarket (Belgiëlei 209), Metahaven is presenting an art intervention in the form of fruit wrappers, titled Wrapping worlds (2023). In Europe, and particularly in Italy, oranges have often been wrapped in thin papers with printed graphics as a way of advertising. By creating fruit wrappers as both objects of aesthetic pleasure and carriers of layered narratives, the work of Metahaven highlights the dynamic interplay between nature, culture, and human experience.
As a physical extension of the project, TICK TACK publishes an exhibition catalog, including a theoretical reflection by philosopher and writer Bogna Konior, who currently is an assistant professor in Interactive Media Arts at NYU Shanghai. Konior’s writing provides a captivating additional framework to the show.
Details:
Opening reception: 15th September, 7 - 10pm
Exhibition Runs: 15 September – 28 October
Address: TICK TACK, Mechelsesteenweg 247, 2018 Antwerpen
<aside> 📌 You can download press release (eng, dutch), photos and other materials by link.
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TICK TACK (opened in may, 2019) is a destination for contemporary art in Antwerp. TT produces, presents and promotes international exhibitions and video art screenings, complemented by limited edition publications and an extensive digital archive.
General inquiries: [email protected] +32 (0) 499 107 957 Press inquiries: [email protected]