Show review: Danielle Brathwaite Shirley, The Delusion, and Petter Doig's House of Music shows at Serpentine Gallery.
Our lives are online and so is our art, posted on social media and even made with the help of AI, LMMs, etc.
Does being present online affect our presence IRL in galleries, museums and art spaces in general?Two exhibitions stimulated this critique of digital engagement and creativity: Peter Doig's House of Music and Danielle Brathwaite Shirley's The Delusion at the Serpentine gallery.What can we do? Before we visit the two exhibitions, Joana analyses how her work as an art podcaster provides insights into the realities of new technologies, creativity, the social feedback loop and having a sentient body.---Understanding the impact of the internet and AI on contemporary art practices---
For further reading: https://joanaprneves.substack.com/p/the-comedy-of-contemporary-artSubscribe to Exhibitionistas. If you want to know more, and dig deeper subscribe to our Substack page. We're allergic to newsletters and passionate about writing. Our episode emails introduce our guests and share their projects, and much more. ✺ Exhibitionistas Files on Substack: https://joanaprneves.substack.com/s/exhibitionistas✤ Joana P. R. Neves on Susbtack (Art Thinkosaurus)https://joanaprneves.substack.comExhibitionistas is a one-woman labour of dedication to bring you fresh and at times provocative ideas about art, and creativity. We're committed to uphold the values of discussion, creations, critical thinking and emotional intelligence. Donating allows us to produce more and better. Think about this: you would not leave a shop, coffee in hand, without paying for it. Compensate the work.So, if a membership is too much, leave us a tip–every donation is a boost! https://buymeacoffee.com/exhibitionistaIf you're interested in a membership and the perks that come with it (such as access to the paywalled page The Curator Motherboard), go to our Substack memberships, where you can also become a Big Supporter and ask for a specific topic to be discussed in the podcast or here as a "thank you".Currently, there is a 50% discount: it is £1.75 / month.https://joanaprneves.substack.com/sub...For more flexible donations:https://exhibitionistaspodcast.com/su...Host & FounderExhibitionistas is hosted by Joana P. R. Neves, a seasoned curator and writer with over 20 years of experience in the contemporary visual art field. She loves demystifying contemporary art by blending art history, theory, and personal reflections to reveal how art can uncover views on today's hottest topics as much as on everlasting existential questions. For collaborations, text commissions and inquiries: joana@exhibitionistaspodcast.comFollow us on Instagram: @exhibitionistas_podcasthttps://exhibitionistaspodcast.com0:00 Introduction8:50 Art Spaces and Online Spaces Intersect14:35 How Work Online and at Work Creating Content Impacts our Notion of Presence17:23 The Other Side of the Mirror: The Ethics of Creating Art Content Online20:14 Does Less = Nothing? The Impact of Measuring31:47 Two case studies: Peter Doig and Danielle Brathwaite Shirley at the Serpentine Gallery
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Hello, I hope you're doing very, very well and thank you for
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joining me today. Exhibitionist is an independent
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podcast created and hosted by me, Joanna Pierre Nevers.
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We are both actors and spectators of art and life.
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If you're new here, you have a whole catalog of episodes to
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enjoy. Discover them at your own pace.
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But before I go into the topics you probably noticed in these
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last few weeks I have reduced the pace of the episode.
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I'm so sorry, but I was so so sick.
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I caught a virus in Paris at the end of October and ever since
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then it's been pretty hard to go back to a normal level of
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energy. It was that weird flu virus that
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mutated 7 times. All this to say that in 2026 the
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pace will go back to normal. Friday the 9th of January we
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pick up the the pace again with biweekly episodes.
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What is coming up is really exciting.
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So I'm starting the year with my art tools episode.
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So 2 artists talking about their favorite tools and then there is
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an episode which is an art topic dedicated to colour and I have a
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fabulous, fabulous guest who knows a lot about it.
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OK, so the episode I visited 2 exhibitions that were a real
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experience at the Serpentine. Why can't I say Serpentine?
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Serpentine OK Serpentine S is House of Music solo exhibition
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of the artist Peter Doig and in the building of the Serpentine
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N, an exhibition called The Delusion by Danielle Brathwaite
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Shirley. These two exhibitions brought to
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mind the notion of space. What spaces are we visiting?
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Are we inhabiting in the age of online culture?
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Is the engagement in online spaces affecting our experience
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of real spaces and specifically the Delusions of the Daniel
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Brathwaite Shirley exhibition is a Gaming Commission by the
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Serpentines. So the Serpentine, to my
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knowledge, is one of the few museums or arts organizations
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that has a dedicated team to technology.
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And so the exhibition was curated by to Mark Clark Brown,
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Arts Technology Curator. While The Delusion is a Gaming
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Commission that lives in that space as an exhibition, House of
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Music presents analog technology in the space, which is peculiar
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for a painter and therefore gives the paintings a different
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kind of status. So before talking about these
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exhibitions, I will get to them at the end of the episode.
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I wanted to provide some ground. Of course, I am a contemporary
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art curator, but I am also a spectator.
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I also go and see exhibitions like everybody else, but I come
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with baggage. So as a podcaster, I have been
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on the other side of the mirror, Thus the title.
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Which is to say that I have been working with AI.
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So the softwares that I use use AI.
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And just a parenthesis here, the term artificial intelligence is
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a marketing ploy. So it's supposed to seduce you
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into thinking that you are engaging with some form of
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intelligence, meaning a creative, logical, rational and
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imaginative force. However, the real function of
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these technologies is machine learning, so they learn from
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everything you put into them. Therefore they manage that
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information to create other types of information.
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What they don't have is a soul. They don't have the spark, they
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don't have the experience of mobile body, a life that is in
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the world as such as a sentient being, an embodied experience of
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that logic, of that imagination, of that information.
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So our bodies, of course, and that's why the parallel with
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machine learning is so compelling.
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It's because we are those bodies that produce data all the time
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through sensation, through thoughts, through memories,
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through projections into the future.
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And therefore it is tempting to assimilate yourself with an AI,
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or it is tempting for some. I would say the transhumanists,
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for example. I think you deserve to know a
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bit more about what's going on from someone who's from the
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inside and has a real perception of the implications of this new
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kind of technology producing fake content.
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That's what's happening to artists as well.
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Now there's this idea that you can make an AI make a painting,
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which is strange, isn't it? Are we really thinking about the
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implications of considering that that is creativity.
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Suddenly we had the bunnies jumping on a trampoline
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circulating as images that were real.
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This is the real turning point that we're going through.
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So we are faced with the fact that reality is not a given
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anymore. The real novelty is not really
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the existence of that video. We know that there's the
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capability, the technological capability to produce these
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videos. The real novelty is the fact
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that they are now circulating as the real thing and we are
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engaging with them and someone somewhere is analysing our
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behaviour. So that's what is called the
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social feedback loop. And this expression is really
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important, the idea of the loop, and that's what I wanted to talk
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about because the social feedback loop, so the reaction
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to a content online that creates engagement and therefore creates
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views, it creates plays. And so it is quantifiable in
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terms of the audience that it engages and that feeds back
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information into those platforms or into those softwares.
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This is rendered possible by these platforms, and so I am on
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one of those platforms. I really believe that we are all
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a piece of this puzzle and we need to communicate about it and
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to devise strategies not to succumb to an industry that is
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now in the late phase of having created spaces where we now have
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a new way of life. And this work is a very specific
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kind of labour. It is a labour of research, but
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it is also a labour of bringing you back to real, I don't even
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know what to call it, to 3D spaces and to a sort of
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awareness of your own embodied, sentient self as someone with
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agency. We have agency in this panorama
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that can be or will become bleak if and only if we don't engage
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in a real awareness of what we're doing and the economy
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we're creating. That's it.
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That's my job done. So enjoy the episode and see you
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in 2026. If you're listening before the
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end of the year or wherever you are in whatever timeline you're
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in, thank you for being here and enjoy the episode.
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Hello and welcome to the last episode of 2025, The other side
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of the Mirror Art spaces. In the age of online life.
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As a curator, I consider myself to be a specialist of spaces.
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I see their potential and I understand how things placed in
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spaces can connect to you, the visitor who walks in.
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And so I decided to think about the different kinds of spaces
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that we inhabit in the art fields and in life in general.
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So I'm recording, and for those who are not watching, you
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probably can imagine that I am looking at my own image on the
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screen while I record. So there's two Johannas, there's
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two spaces that I'm inhabiting, and this is precisely what I
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want to talk about. Does being online affect our
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perception of exhibition spaces and thus producing online
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content? Give insights on these new
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spaces that we inhabit. So if you think about it, it's
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quite a new thing to be able to be physically in a space while
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being mentally in another in a very concrete way.
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If you think about dreams, for example, or about books, you can
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see that we are, we have a tendency to inhabit different
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spaces at the same time, and we can turn those spaces into
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places. We can be there.
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We can be more present in a place called a screen, which is
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what is happening to me precisely at this moment,
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because I am looking at my own reflection or my own image on
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the screen while I record, rather than looking at my
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physical surroundings and connecting with them.
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When you go to an exhibition space, that space is peculiar.
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Nothing of what happens in an exhibition space is compatible
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with the rules of society. You look at things for a very
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long time. If you're watching a performance
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there, you stare at the person in a way that you wouldn't in
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the outside world. And it is also a space that is
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starting to be influenced by other online virtual spaces.
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Back in the day when you visited exhibitions, taking pictures was
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a complicated matter. You couldn't use the flash.
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You sometimes and very often could not take pictures at all.
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Whereas nowadays, if you pay attention when you enter a
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museum, you probably will have a suggested hashtag for you to tag
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the exhibition that you're about to visit, and that you're also
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encouraged to tag the museum or the art organization itself.
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So now museums want to inhabit virtual spaces through you, the
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visitor. And this is precisely what I
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want to talk about today. I want to talk about the way
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that we exist in contemporary art spaces or in art spaces in
00:12:08
general, online, in real spaces. But I also want to do something
00:12:16
else. I want to talk to you from the
00:12:19
other side of the mirror. I am literally and
00:12:24
metaphorically, symbolically on the other side of things,
00:12:30
especially on the other side of technology.
00:12:34
And I've been wanting to invite you in to reveal a few of those
00:12:39
insights that I've been acquiring across almost two
00:12:44
years in January. Exhibitionists will be two years
00:12:47
old very, very soon. But it's very difficult to
00:12:52
convey information that you have but that you don't quite
00:12:58
understand regarding AI, regarding many, many things that
00:13:02
are affecting our society in very concrete terms.
00:13:06
And I haven't been able to hold that information and make sense
00:13:12
of it fully. I still don't.
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I'm going to be very honest with you, there's a lot of it that I
00:13:18
don't understand. I've been reading about it, I've
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been listening to podcasts about it, but there's only so much an
00:13:25
art curator can do. However, I do want you to be
00:13:30
part of the conversation and I want to, as much as I am a bit
00:13:36
completely exhausted by this expression, I want to empower
00:13:40
you as well because we're in this together.
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And I would really want to make you feel comfortable in bringing
00:13:50
your own insights into this and your own experiences into this.
00:13:54
So please leave comments on Spotify, on YouTube, reply to
00:13:58
the newsletter, leave comments on sub stack on Instagram.
00:14:03
I'm really curious and I will put up a post on Instagram
00:14:08
asking for your insights, your opinions.
00:14:10
I don't know yet quite how I will phrase it, but I'm really
00:14:15
interested in knowing a bit more how you are experiencing these
00:14:19
virtual spaces and what kind of engagement as well do you have
00:14:23
with them and what you expect from them.
00:14:27
So I'm going to start with the story that happened this summer,
00:14:34
the summer when I lived in two spaces at the same time.
00:14:41
So this summer I spent most of my time in this space.
00:14:46
There you can see if you're watching, which is my office.
00:14:50
It's a tiny, tiny, tiny office. And why did I spend or why am I
00:14:56
saying that I spent my time here?
00:14:59
Because I did a bargain with Diego, my husband, I asked him
00:15:05
to be on the residency at home. So to be clear, what I asked
00:15:12
for, in hindsight, it's quite crazy.
00:15:18
I, I have to admit, I asked to be at home as if I was in the
00:15:24
residency because we have been talking about that possibility
00:15:27
somewhere else. So I asked to be here while not
00:15:32
really being here. I wanted to be in my office, not
00:15:36
participate in any of the chores or not all of them.
00:15:41
I I'm not complete monster and to be in my office and to work
00:15:46
all the time. So I decided that this summer I
00:15:49
would work on the podcast and that few other projects because
00:15:53
I wanted to have a moment of intentional and complete
00:16:01
immersion in my work for the first time in my life.
00:16:05
I've never had that. I was a mother very early on.
00:16:08
I always had different jobs. I'm what is called a portfolio
00:16:13
professional, which means that I have many different kinds of
00:16:16
jobs and I work for different people.
00:16:18
And particularly now that I'm independent, it is more so.
00:16:24
So of course, I think you have noticed that these are the
00:16:28
traits of a workaholic. So I didn't have any weekends, I
00:16:33
didn't go anywhere. I spent most of my time in this
00:16:38
tiny office dedicating myself completely to the task at hand.
00:16:46
The first consequence of that was that it created a really,
00:16:52
really strange atmosphere at home.
00:16:55
I became a sort of a zombie mother and partner.
00:16:58
I was here, but I wasn't here. I was physically in the space
00:17:04
shared with other people, but I wasn't present.
00:17:07
I think that freaks everyone out.
00:17:11
It's over, it's done with. But I think it was confusing for
00:17:16
a lot of people, except for myself.
00:17:18
I was happy as a clam. Welcome to the other side of the
00:17:23
mirror. But at the same time, while I
00:17:27
was here and not here, while I was in a space, but my place was
00:17:34
my office and not the rest of the house, a lot of things were
00:17:38
happening in streaming platforms, particularly Spotify.
00:17:44
The then CEO of Spotify invested $6 million in Helsink, which is
00:17:53
a company or a corporation that makes drones, AI drones for the
00:18:01
military. And a lot of people decided to
00:18:04
boycott Spotify. And for me particularly, you had
00:18:07
just moved to Spotify a few months earlier.
00:18:11
It was a disaster. It means learning a whole new
00:18:15
software and leaving Spotify also means losing a lot of
00:18:22
information that people rely on. If they want to sponsor you, for
00:18:27
example, they will ask you, So what has been your increase of
00:18:32
listenership? What's your audience?
00:18:35
And of course, you can download that information, which takes a
00:18:41
lot of time. One of the other reasons why it
00:18:45
was difficult to move to Spotify is because musicians are
00:18:50
exploited on Spotify. So for 10 listens, 10
00:18:56
plays of a song on Spotify, the musician or musicians are paid
00:19:04
$50, which is nothing, especially if you think of a
00:19:09
Group, A band, there's not only one person that gets the money.
00:19:13
So Spotify really is exploiting musicians and it is also
00:19:18
exploiting podcasters because the only way for you to monetize
00:19:22
your podcast. So this is again another
00:19:25
expression that I had to learn which is making money from your
00:19:29
podcast or making it financially sustainable is through ads.
00:19:35
And for you to be eligible for ads, you have to have 10
00:19:39
downloads for episodes, which is huge, huge.
00:19:45
We are in the 25% of top rate ranking of, of podcasts in terms
00:19:52
of audiences. So for you to understand how
00:19:56
great Exhibitionist is doing, but at the same time how?
00:20:01
Badly it fares in comparison to all the other huge podcasts is
00:20:06
less equal to nothing. How measuring audiences impacts
00:20:12
art spaces tell you another story.
00:20:17
This one's very quick. I was discovering all of those
00:20:21
things about Spotify and at the same time finding out that
00:20:28
investors had also brought in quite a lot of money to Sub
00:20:34
Stack. And therefore the place where I
00:20:37
do myself publishing, where I have all my texts, where I can
00:20:41
earn a living, was also changing.
00:20:44
And the reason why this platform exists is fantastic.
00:20:48
Magazines, newspapers, they're not paying enough for writers to
00:20:55
publish their articles. So it's easier to have your own
00:20:59
page and to be compensated for it than to pitch articles to
00:21:05
magazines. So these platforms, right,
00:21:10
they're strange because they offer you a space which you turn
00:21:17
into your place, your place of creativity, and then they become
00:21:24
problematic. That's my situation in the
00:21:27
summer, remember? And I decided to call a
00:21:31
colleague, podcaster, and ask them because they were
00:21:34
pressuring people to leave Spotify and ask them what they
00:21:38
thought. And this person was being very
00:21:41
adamant in saying that there was no question that I should leave
00:21:45
the platform, streaming platform.
00:21:48
And anyway, they said you have a job, right?
00:21:53
Suggesting that I wasn't expecting to monetize the
00:21:56
podcast, which I found rather curious.
00:21:59
And this is a key moment for me at the time.
00:22:04
And this takes us to something that we all questioned, if you
00:22:09
remember correctly. And if you go back in time, you
00:22:13
will remember asking yourself, why was Spotify free?
00:22:18
Why is Instagram free? Why can I watch everything on
00:22:23
YouTube? And that was a good question
00:22:26
because it was so enjoyable to have access to all that content.
00:22:33
We didn't insist on that question.
00:22:36
And that's what I want to draw your attention to.
00:22:40
So that is Phase 1. So phase one is creating
00:22:44
platforms without profit most of the time, which is the case for
00:22:51
open AI nowadays. And I'll get to it, establishing
00:22:55
platforms. This is what I understand.
00:22:57
So please, people who know about these things out there, correct
00:23:00
me if I'm wrong, but from what I've read, you establish these
00:23:03
platforms, you don't make money off of them.
00:23:06
And then the second moment is to start monetizing, including ads,
00:23:15
creating sections that are unavailable if you don't pay for
00:23:20
them. For example, Spotify, you have
00:23:23
lots of modalities. If you're in there, you can,
00:23:26
your family can be in there for reduced prices, poor friends.
00:23:31
There's the same with Netflix. So you have ways of drawing
00:23:35
people in once you've made yourself feel absolutely vital.
00:23:44
You cannot live without Netflix. You cannot live without
00:23:47
podcasts. You cannot live without YouTube.
00:23:50
You can. You cannot live without Claude
00:23:53
or Chachi PT. Those things have become tools
00:23:57
for a life, a relevant life in contemporary society.
00:24:03
So they hold you. And this is where AI comes in.
00:24:10
OK, I love podcasts and so I listen to my fair share of them,
00:24:15
much less now that I've become a podcaster, ironically.
00:24:19
But I do listen to critics at large, The New Yorker podcast,
00:24:25
and this year the title of their 2025 wrap up episode was 2025,
00:24:33
the Year of the Broken Mirror. And so at a certain point in the
00:24:39
episode, one of them talks about a friend of theirs who posted on
00:24:46
Instagram a very realistic image with a text saying, I can't be
00:24:54
dedicating my time now to try and figure out which image is
00:24:59
real and which isn't. Which is to say that we've
00:25:03
stepped into a time that includes in our media images
00:25:10
that are not real or that you can't quite tell whether they're
00:25:16
real or not, which means that you're also looking at images
00:25:20
that are real as if they could potentially not be.
00:25:25
But that's not really the novelty.
00:25:27
The novelty. I mean, we know deep fakes,
00:25:30
right? That's already that had already
00:25:32
happened. What hadn't happened is the
00:25:35
inclusion of those images in a deregulated arena of the media
00:25:43
I'm talking about specifically is the fact that most
00:25:46
governments are deregulating AI. You don't know if those bunnies
00:25:50
that you're seeing jumping on the trampoline are real or not.
00:25:55
Now we know they're not, and we know that that was a sort of an
00:26:00
experiment that was done to see people's reaction.
00:26:04
And I found Sandy Kay on LinkedIn, who had, According to
00:26:09
him, produced that video and put it on social media, and they
00:26:14
talked about the social feedback loop.
00:26:17
The feedback loop is that you put something out there, people
00:26:20
engage with it. So it's about an audience
00:26:22
engagement, which is something that museums talk a lot about.
00:26:26
And then that engagement is feeding back into the machine
00:26:31
the information that the machine needs to have from you to know
00:26:36
what to give to you, to know what draws your attention.
00:26:40
And so in some ways we are becoming parts of the mechanism
00:26:47
and we are feeding back into that mechanism, but we're not
00:26:51
feeding what we want to feed. We are feeding something that
00:26:55
has been stimulated in us by false, fake information.
00:27:03
So this is a new era where first of all, we are not sure whether
00:27:10
what we're looking at is real or not.
00:27:13
And secondly, we are engaging with that content and therefore
00:27:20
we are producing information for that content to then create
00:27:28
other kinds of content. I mean, the obvious consequence
00:27:32
of that is that anything that an AI creates is derivative.
00:27:37
And if we are in that loop, that means that our reactions to what
00:27:43
is being fed to us is also derivative.
00:27:48
So we are being disconnected from our own agency and also
00:27:55
from our own personality. There's a disconnect between
00:28:00
what you would naturally choose because you are being chosen by
00:28:05
the content. But what is happening now with
00:28:08
this situation? So the third consequence is that
00:28:13
this loop that is being created means that because they hold you
00:28:18
in there, you are in there, you are consuming, you are a
00:28:22
consumer in that loop and you don't need creatives anymore
00:28:28
because you are feeding the information to the AI for the AI
00:28:32
to produce content. And so there's this idea that
00:28:36
the AI is going to be faster, it's going to be better than us
00:28:41
at creating as humans at creating, and therefore we won't
00:28:46
need creatives anymore. So Mark Zuckerberg created
00:28:50
something called infinite creative, which is an AI that
00:28:55
produces ads through prompts. And so work labour is now being
00:29:02
described as finding the proper prompt for AI, which means
00:29:06
learning how to speak robot so that the AI can produce the ad
00:29:11
for you. I describe myself as an A
00:29:16
workaholic. Remember in the beginning of the
00:29:18
podcast, I love working and the thing, if I was to choose the
00:29:24
thing that has affected me the most, and I wanted to get to
00:29:28
this. I didn't want to be too dramatic
00:29:31
in the beginning. And I do not to want want to
00:29:35
yield to pessimism, but I think we need to be realistic here.
00:29:39
And the thing that really, really, really affects me and
00:29:46
makes me incredibly sad is this notion that people accepted that
00:29:52
create for you, which for me means that we have a lot of
00:29:57
reckoning to do as humans because we don't know what
00:30:02
creating is. Those who create can't describe
00:30:06
it. It's not their job.
00:30:08
And those who consume it seem to have forgotten what creating is.
00:30:13
And they seem to have forgotten that is basically and most and
00:30:18
foremost a human need. And it's not an isolated human
00:30:23
need because because of romanticism, artists have have
00:30:27
been so described as these lonely creatures up a mountain
00:30:31
on their own, in their own little worlds, that we forget
00:30:35
that creativity is a dynamic. It is a dynamic between the
00:30:40
person who creates the world's humans, not humans, ecosystems,
00:30:47
phenomena, feelings, emotions, knowledge, and the people who
00:30:53
receive it. I think there's a problem.
00:30:56
We've been cut away for sure in contemporary art too much from
00:31:01
audiences. That's I think a given and I
00:31:04
think we need to accept that. And that's why exhibitionists
00:31:07
for me is so important and I believe in what I'm doing.
00:31:11
It's it serves a purpose, which is not to replace the exhibition
00:31:15
experience and it is not to replace books or any of the kind
00:31:19
of research or any other kind of written creativity.
00:31:23
Sound is not the same as the written word.
00:31:25
They're completely different. And I think we've forgotten all
00:31:28
of this and we're panicking where we shouldn't because a is
00:31:33
don't need to make art and therefore will never make art.
00:31:36
And I think we need to do something about it.
00:31:38
Don't you? I think you do.
00:31:40
I think we need to come together and do something about this.
00:31:44
Spectators, visitors, audience, breeders, listeners, flanner and
00:31:49
flanners, hecklers, dancers, swimmers, hikers.
00:31:54
What spaces do you inhabit, as promised?
00:32:05
And to end this episode, because there's a lot of information
00:32:09
already in here, I wanted to talk about Hans Ulrich Obreist,
00:32:15
who is the director of the Serpentine.
00:32:17
A year ago, he announced that gaming was going to be a major
00:32:21
axis of the program at the Serpentine.
00:32:25
And the Serpentine is a space that I love.
00:32:28
I really enjoy going there. It's in the middle of a park.
00:32:32
It has a very special and specific aura.
00:32:35
I enjoy that space. This gaming thing really
00:32:40
resonated with me. If you go to the Ed Atkins
00:32:43
episode that I recorded before the summer, Ed Atkins was
00:32:48
looking at video and he was looking at the fact that when
00:32:53
you game, you impact the film, as it were.
00:32:59
So you have an impact on the image that you're seeing.
00:33:02
So the movement that is on your screen and the characters and
00:33:06
the direction of the narrative, as it were.
00:33:11
And so this idea of active engagement with the thing that
00:33:17
you're looking at turns you into an active spectator rather than
00:33:23
a passive one or a contemplative 1.
00:33:25
So that is really interesting and that is changing things and
00:33:28
it's changing the way we what we expect from screens, what we
00:33:33
expect from film. It's is having an impact whether
00:33:37
we like it or not, even on the way we perceive the world.
00:33:40
Because there have been studies that show that kids who play
00:33:45
games, I am not a gamer. I'm going to tell you right
00:33:48
away, I am bad. So bad I have no skills.
00:33:53
My body and myself are too like there was, I, I'm the clumsiest
00:33:58
person on earth. So unfortunately I can't.
00:34:00
I mean, I do, I have played, but I, it's not something that I
00:34:04
will very naturally orbitate towards.
00:34:08
But I have been talking to people about this and there
00:34:11
there's studies that show that kids who play or people who play
00:34:15
games, they have developed different skills.
00:34:20
I mean, there's a lot of advantages.
00:34:22
So this really interested me, the fact that Obrist was saying
00:34:26
that that was something that they were thinking about because
00:34:29
my immediate question was, oh, so what's the impacts?
00:34:33
What is going to happen in terms of the experience of the space?
00:34:37
And will we have giant screens? Will this be a gaming area that
00:34:42
the Serpentine's going to be turned into?
00:34:45
Lots of questions and the exhibitions that are currently
00:34:49
open at the Serpentine are quite interesting in that respect, and
00:34:55
I'll tell you why. Daniel Brathwaite Shirley is a
00:35:03
black trans game designer and artists.
00:35:06
The idea was that the Serpentine was commissioning some sort of
00:35:11
gaming and so the exhibition space is really interesting
00:35:16
because the aesthetic is very old school gaming design and
00:35:25
horror films. I mean, very few people will be
00:35:28
seduced by the aesthetic and probably younger generations.
00:35:32
And so it is an exhibition that is all about the sort of
00:35:36
reversed experience of virtual spaces.
00:35:39
As soon as you go in, you have this whole wallpaper with these
00:35:45
creations of creatures and spaces and lettering that are
00:35:51
associated together in the way that you can do image softwares
00:35:55
where you can kind of merge creatures and you can create
00:35:58
weirdly associated shapes, creating a friction with these
00:36:02
perfect CGI films that we have nowadays.
00:36:05
Perfect photography, everything is super defined and at the same
00:36:10
time, there's a few drawings that have sentences that you
00:36:13
recognize and you recognize. So these are line drawings with
00:36:17
ink or pen lobby creatures and there are sentences, they're
00:36:22
talking, they're saying things that you recognize from online
00:36:26
forums and from these spaces where things are become becoming
00:36:31
acrimonious, where there's some tension.
00:36:34
And they are expressions that you could put in any side of the
00:36:40
conversation at times. They're the typical complaints
00:36:44
that you find online, but then there's other sentences that
00:36:48
pertain to the experience of difference and discrimination
00:36:53
and the artist being trans, the way they convey this idea that,
00:37:00
and there's there's one particular drawing that I'm
00:37:02
thinking of that talks about, oh, you only want to exclude me
00:37:06
because parts of my body. And so the way that this is
00:37:10
conveyed is incredibly sophisticated and subtle because
00:37:14
it doesn't become the main topic of the conversation.
00:37:21
It becomes the experience through which the artist can
00:37:24
reach out to your own experience and from there bring you into
00:37:28
their own experience as well. It's one of those exhibitions
00:37:31
where I didn't feel like I had to read a lot of things to
00:37:34
understand what was going on. The space is is darkish,
00:37:38
obviously, because it's going to be screens and it's going to be
00:37:41
sculptures that are playing with this idea of an animation.
00:37:46
And a lot of things are made from repurposed furniture.
00:37:49
So there's this big massive cupboard, I want to say where
00:37:55
you are invited to open the door if a statement in there
00:38:00
particularly resonates with you. And so I remember when I was
00:38:05
looking into the sort of looks like a portal, I remember was a
00:38:08
question about religion. And it was a question about how
00:38:11
important religion was to you. And the idea that I was to open
00:38:17
that door in regards to that statement felt bizarre to me.
00:38:22
So you immediately reacted to what is being told by this very
00:38:28
simple prompt by almost a sort of an absurd instruction because
00:38:33
there's nothing interactive. You are the 1 making the sculpt
00:38:37
to move by opening the door. And then in another room, there
00:38:41
is this table that looks like a seance table, only there's a
00:38:45
screen on one side of it and you're supposed to play, and the
00:38:48
joystick is the table top. And you play with all the other
00:38:52
people around you that you don't know.
00:38:55
It is strongly suggested that you should interact with the
00:38:58
people you're playing it with. And at a certain point you have
00:39:01
to because the people that are already there when you arrive
00:39:04
are going to explain the game to you.
00:39:06
It is an incredibly enjoyable experience.
00:39:09
It's not about taste, it's not aesthetic, it's not
00:39:12
contemplative. Something happened in that
00:39:14
exhibition that was very, very joyful, deep, connective, and
00:39:20
that that sort of deconstructed what you thought that the
00:39:24
exhibition space was or was going to be.
00:39:29
So that was a really, really interesting one.
00:39:30
And then so this was Serpentine North.
00:39:32
And then there's the Peter Doig exhibition in the South Gallery,
00:39:37
which is also completely unexpected.
00:39:40
It's called House of Music. So Peter Doig spends a lot of
00:39:44
time in Trinidad, the Caribbean island.
00:39:47
He loves music, loves music from there.
00:39:50
And so House of Music for sure. OK, you as you enter, there's a
00:39:55
big massive painting with flags with lots of colours that are as
00:40:00
vivid as they are a little bit translucent in this very
00:40:05
specific Peter Doig painting style.
00:40:07
And then there's music. There's music everywhere.
00:40:10
It's play. The music is playing constantly.
00:40:12
And as you go into one of the side rooms, you see.
00:40:17
The most incredible objects I've seen in a while.
00:40:23
This absolutely fantastic, voluptuous, sensual, soft, warm
00:40:31
object which is none other than speaker from 1920s auditoriums
00:40:39
or theaters. That was so an analog speaker
00:40:43
that was restored and used in the space.
00:40:47
I think there are two of them. You have chairs.
00:40:50
So in one side room you have chairs and tables.
00:40:54
A little bit like a cafe. Everything's a bit dark.
00:40:57
And So what is what I loved about it is that it it looks
00:41:01
like an old timey club, Music Hall or dance club where you
00:41:09
would have images, you'd have decorations.
00:41:11
So it doesn't mean that it's bad painting or bad decoration, but
00:41:15
where the paintings are a little bit on the background.
00:41:19
And what's really important in animating the space is the
00:41:22
music. And those two exhibitions I
00:41:26
found incredibly enjoyable. They both the two exhibitions
00:41:31
relied on an external space when there is obviously much more
00:41:36
engagement and much more exchange and where what you're
00:41:43
enjoying is affected by your behaviour very specifically.
00:41:50
So if you're a musician and you're playing music and there's
00:41:52
music live, the presence of people and the way they're
00:41:55
talking and the way they're moving their hips a little bit
00:41:57
because the music is engaging changes the way you exist in the
00:42:02
exhibition and it changes the aura of the paintings.
00:42:05
And when you're a musician, which was my point, you the, the
00:42:11
way the audience reacts to your music, obviously it's going to
00:42:15
affect how you play. So those two exhibitions were
00:42:21
very interesting when it comes to talking about engagement and
00:42:27
talking about audiences, but also talking about spaces.
00:42:31
The spaces that you are inhabiting.
00:42:35
All of these spaces that we're inhabiting, are we really
00:42:38
thinking enough about them and are we really thinking about the
00:42:45
way we're engaging with spaces that are imposed on us?
00:42:50
There aren't really spaces. They are dynamics of existence
00:42:57
and we, our bodies and our consumption are creating them.
00:43:02
Is there a good side of this? Is podcasts artists who are
00:43:08
working with AI to make poetry? Are these other ways of existing
00:43:16
in these places things that you are aware of?
00:43:20
I'm thinking about stand up comedians.
00:43:22
I'm thinking a lot about them because I watched them a lot on
00:43:25
Instagram, for example, to, you know, step away from podcasting.
00:43:29
And in my mind, I keep saying, oh, I want to go to one of these
00:43:33
shows. Oh, so and so is in London.
00:43:36
I must see their show and I never do.
00:43:38
And some of these stand up comedians, like MM Biaglia, for
00:43:42
example, they are artists. I consider that to be art for
00:43:47
sure, and I'm not going to see those shows and I'm watching
00:43:52
them. Maybe we'll have a real vision
00:43:55
of what is going on and the real take on what we must do to make
00:44:01
our lives better and to not be colonized by people, things,
00:44:09
products, behaviours, dynamics that are not conducive to
00:44:14
upholding the best of what we have to give as humans.
00:44:19
OK, this sounds a little bit like an end of year call for
00:44:24
action. Maybe it is, maybe it is, but
00:44:27
I'm sure it's going to be valid for quite some time and I think
00:44:32
we will need to think about these things for a while.
00:44:36
So let me know, let me know where you know, let me know what
00:44:40
you don't know. Let me know where you would like
00:44:42
to know. And we can work together and we
00:44:45
can think together. Don't forget subscribe to the
00:44:49
sub stack. I also wrote about this.
00:44:52
I think my my 2:00 last texts were more or less related to
00:44:56
these issues. Follow me on follow
00:45:00
exhibitionist as on Instagram or follow me Joanna Pionevis on
00:45:05
Instagram and on sub stack. And let's try and create a
00:45:10
dynamic together going into 2026.
00:45:13
And yes, please subscribe as a paid member or donate or buy me
00:45:22
a book. I now have another way for you
00:45:24
to donate, which is to use a platform called buy me a coffee,
00:45:30
but you can have the option of buying a book.
00:45:33
So don't leave this episode without donating.
00:45:36
One pound, 2 lbs whatever you can to the podcast or to sub
00:45:41
stack to my sub stack Joanna Pianevers art think Asaurus.
00:45:45
However you can contribute, please do.
00:45:48
You can also contribute by sharing the podcast, sharing the
00:45:51
episode, talking about it with your friends.
00:45:55
There's so much that we can still do, so let's do it
00:45:58
together. And yeah, well, happy New Year
00:46:02
if you're listening as soon as the episode comes out of the
00:46:05
following days. And if you don't, I hope you're
00:46:08
enjoying whatever time frame you're in.
00:46:11
And I hope you're enjoying your life.
00:46:12
And thank you so much for listening.