Finissage: Really? Art and Knowledge in Time of Crisis - with the KABK Politics of Knowledge Research Group

Numerous commentators and critics have observed a profound crisis in what it means to know and not know – an epistemological crisis, a crisis of knowledge. While this issue is old, there has been an intense debate for over four decades about what constitutes ‘valid’ knowledge and what does not. However, this problem has been greatly exacerbated by the spread of massive misinformation tactics. These tactics, employed by a new breed of malign state and corporate actors, are designed to create strategic doubt using sophisticated internet-based media forms.

Artists have responded by using critical investigative and forensic practices to challenge this strategic epistemological uncertainty and the resulting collapse of trust in institutions that are supposed to ‘know’. However, this ‘evidentiary’ turn in aesthetics and artistic research brings its own challenges. As curators Mi You and David Garcia put it, these works often “project an aura of the irrefutable”, creating a need to move beyond “uncomplicated scientific empiricism”.

How do we navigate the complexities of a situation in which, as the exhibition asserts, the crisis of knowledge and the crisis in politics have become one and the same?

The symposium consists of two thematic blocks of interlocked conversations that explore the challenges of epistemological uncertainty and possible ways to counter strategically created doubt, including new approaches to documentary practices.

The conversations involve artists present in the show, theorists, researchers and activists, including interventions by the research group Politics of Knowledge of the Royal Academy of Art The Hague (KABK). The symposium is moderated by co-curator David Garcia, Eric Kluitenberg (Tactical Media Files) and Alexandra Barancova (NADD – Network Archives Design and Digital Culture).

Check the website of Framer Framed for all the details of this event.