Networked Futures: Online Exhibitions and Digital Hierarchies, 2021
204 pages / 19.7 x 13.2 cm / Full colour printing / Perfect bound / 350 gsm silk paper cover / matt lamination finish / 150 gsm uncoated paper inside / edition of 200
Networked Futures: Online Exhibitions and Digital Hierarchies (2021) is a book that Bob Bicknell-Knight produced, the physical manifestation and culmination of a six-month programme of online exhibitions that ran between the 31st October 2020 and 17th April 2021 on the predominantly digital platform isthisit?. The programme included four exhibitions, and involved thirteen artists and collectives, as well as commissioned texts by four writers whose essays and interviews with the exhibited artists are included in the book.
The book includes artwork, alongside newly commissioned essays and interviews from 17 artists, writers and collectives including Larry Achiampong, Morehshin Allahyari, Allyssia Alleyne, David Blandy, Stine Deja, Corey Hayman, Tamara Kametani, Keiken, Maria Mahfooz, Kumbirai Makumbe, Rene Matić, Jonathan Monaghan, Mimi Ọnụọha, Emily Phillips, Jamie Sutcliffe, Wade Wallerstein and Richard Whitby.
The six-month programme revolved around the idea of networks, exposing and exploring the underlying architecture of our daily lives whilst investigating the social, political, digital and hierarchical networks that we reside within. Each online exhibition on the isthisit? website focused on a different area of our networked selves, from reflecting on the commodification and colonisation of people, places and objects, to speculating on a fabricated future where Earth’s climate has collapsed and lives are lived through different hyper-connected digital worlds.
The pages in the book contain archived material from each online exhibition accompanied by the original press releases, essays from the commissioned writers who were tasked with responding to each exhibition and interviews with each artist and collective. The exhibitions are presented in thematic order, beginning with the first show in the programme and ending with the last.
The programme, alongside the production of this book, was kindly supported by Arts Council England.
BOB BICKNELL-KNIGHT 