Ruptures
Ruptures, staged at 21 Grand Gallery in Oakland, CA examined the uncanny and familiar at the edges of our everyday. Artists often function as oracles, imagining the future in a fast changing world. Dan Grayber, Marya Krogstad, Yael Zaken, Ashley Harris and Jeremy Newman contributed works that required a double take, and questioned just what lies within the bounds of normalcy.
Loosely defined as doubts as to whether an apparently animate being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might in fact be animate and encompassing notions of anxiety, the abject, synchronicity and simulacra; the uncanny has migrated from the fringes of our collective consciousness into the realm of the quotidian. Artificial intelligence, smart machines, biological and genetic alterations no longer belong solely to science fiction or futurist scenarios but are ubiquitous in our daily lives. As the boundaries between the familiar and unfamiliar shift and expand our understanding of the human condition we are confronted by a creeping sense of displacement. What might seem recognizable from one personal or cultural perspective could symbolize the very essence of the unheimlich for others. Ruptures takes place not just in the viewers relationship with the individual works, but in the dialogue between the works themselves; sculpture, photography, installation and video that express an off-center sensibility.
