Visiocracy
11 – 24 February 2021
Modern Art Research Institute
Kyiv, Ukraine
The theme of the project encourages rethinking the existing concepts of the theory of visual perception. Curators offer to reflect on the merging of virtual and real experience, which affected everyone in 2020. Is this good or bad, but we can feel the consequences of this synthesis even now.
“Our perception is especially sensitive to the visual attributes of beauty, prosperity, and success. That’s why the world’s empires used gold, flowers, naked body and cheery faces as the means of their glorification. Those who could afford all this luxury, found themselves inside of the blaze of glory, even acting against morality and the interests of society.
It’s because an attractive image reduces critical thinking while activating the forefeeling of pleasures. In this way visiocracy directs the vision, prompting the society to associate the subject of authority only with the changes for the better.
Attempts of radical emancipation from this archaic phenomenon appeared in the experiments of avant-gardists. Malevich’s square became a harbinger of the new era of iconoclasm, which in different forms continues until today.
It’s not so easy to rebuild the visual culture. Even where the images disappear, their place is usually taken by literature and ideology, developing the dependence on the discourse. The tradition to oppress the consciousness by emotionally charged images, words and texts is so strong, that its deconstruction is usually associated with chaos and madness.
Thereby, it’s obvious that visiocracy is deeply rooted into the mass culture, but the understanding of this fact takes place only within the territory of the modern art.”
