GODMODADOGGEREL
a group show about art, science, and survival
organized by anna wittenberg & nick herman
ARTISTS
WHERE | WHEN
FRAMEWORK
INSTALLATION IMAGES
Wrestling with the vital but awkward twin subjects of science and art it appears that something is missing. Askew. A not-so-subtle erasure repressing the origins of this shattered age. God.
A doggerel.
A guttural intersection of howl and howler, GODMODADOGGEREL foregrounds the structure and materiality of carnival to confront time and its belligerent handmaid, language. Here, in the wily lyricism of poetry and the logic of sacred violence rests the germ of the exhibition. This is the origin of the portmanteau “godmod,” a term that today evokes gaming but that stretches back to prehistory in its purpose and politic. The modification implied in any technological hack, whether first person shooter, alchemy, or clowning, is one of distinction, up and down, in and out, healthy and sick. A godmod is the expansive and tangled intersection of mimicry and desire underlying the stochastic attempt to adapt in order to survive. GODMODADOGGEREL finds its inspiration in this hybridization and systemization of eros, blurring the lines between bodies in order to reanimate the messy techne that insures life.
GODMODADOGGEREL brings together a group of artists whose diverse working methods link the roles of mechanical instrumentation with the urge to map and divine meaning in things. It is this interest in the apparatus—as a tool of decipherment—that frames GODMODADOGGEREL.