Since antiquity an object's materiality - its material cause - is one of four factors that allow it
existence; A thing without materiality, was nonexistent. As our lives become submerged in the
intangible world of digital computation, where work has cleanly separated from any residual notion of
labor, and where real no longer carries the promise of actuality, we become trusting of the most
inherently unreliable of materials: information. This condition is emblematic of our culture, though our
faith in information, in ideas, is nothing new. But where ideas used to be anchored and indexed to a
sensible realm (stone represented permanence because of its solidity), now, in our Internet state of
mind, they float freely, adrift, latching on to each other now and again in freewheeling knowledge
chains as in an unending game of Chinese whispers. Not long ago, a quote attributed to Abraham
Lincoln appeared in various blogs and online communities. "Never believe quotations you read on the
Internet," he warned.
Central to A Material World is the question of whether objects and their material constitution
have an identity in their own right, or whether their communicative value is purely a social creation.
Historically, there have been two basic models of matter: one in which it exists because we imbue it
with meaning, and another where it's actualized through non-human processes. For the first model,
matter's essence, its form, operates as an imagined archetypal DNA. A rose is a rose is a rose, wrote
Gertrude Stein in 1935, as if to suggest an immutable "rosehood". For the second, its identity is formed
through a course of universal systemic actions. A rose in this case is not the material embodiment of an
ideal of a beautiful flower, but the end expression of a unique series of chemical reactions over time.
A Material World, curated by Carson Chan for PSM Gallery, aims to address the space
between these two definitions. From here, we can imagine a new materialism that reflects our
contemporary existence - split between the lives we lead as information, and in the world of physical
substance. For many, when reading or saying the name of this exhibition - A Material World - the
music of Madonna's 1985 hit song Material Girl slips into mind. The song's rhythm, melodic cadence,
new-wave refrain, notions of affluence and Madonna's singular voice have been fused into our
conception of this combination of words. Can we ever see the world apart from the models we've
created to understand it? Is there experience outside of cultural mediation?
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Carsten Nicolai, Niko Princen, Katarzyna Przezwańska, Florian & Michael Quistrebert, Olve Sande, Timur Si-Qin
