Mercury
A lecture on the photographic by Post Brothers
TiPO, 09.05, 15.00 (3.00 p.m.), wykład (eng) – Matthew Post (Post Brothers)
Aby dołączyć do spotkania wideo, kliknij ten link: https://meet.google.com/top-
Jeśli chcesz dołączyć przez telefon, wybierz +48 22 163 91 72 i wpisz PIN: 897 027 205#
Aby zobaczyć więcej numerów telefonów, kliknij ten link: https://tel.meet/top-umkp-szp?
“Photography as a material process had quite a short life. One could mark the endpoints of its historical moment as ranging from the toxic mercury fumes of the daguerreotype to the computer-generated quicksilver of the shape-shifting android assassin T-1000 in the film Terminator 2. Now the field of photography has itself become mercury-like. Liquid, protean, mutable, and fast flowing. Magically reflective, moving at the slightest touch.” – From the essay Mercury by Simon Dybbroe Møller and Post Brothers.
Drawing upon their 2019 exhibition Mercury at the Tallinn Kunsthall and subsequent research, writings, and seminars conducted by Post Brothers with the artist Simon Dybbroe Møller, this lecture explores how photography has transformed itself from a physical object into a mere reference point. An abstract term that we apply to stuff, a part of the crystalline lens through which we perceive the world, a measuring stick that we carry around with us and relate everything to. It has become an ecology or, rather, the very terms through which our environment is apprehended and develops. Drawing on a wide-range of artworks, artifacts, and anecdotes, the talk will chart a difference between “photography” and the “Photographic”, transforming the discourse from a historically bound technology to an attribute, a quality, that is applied to all manner of phenomena. The lecture considers how we look at the world around us and how we view history and our material world through the lens of technological development. Specifically, it examines how already obsolete or moribund technologies colour our relationship to now.
Post Brothers is a critical enterprise that includes Matthew Post, an enthusiast, word processor, educator, and (co)dependent curator often engaged in artist-oriented projects or occupying the secondary information surrounding cultural production. From 2016-2019, Post Brothers was the curator at Kunstverein München, Munich, Germany, and from 2021-2023, they were an Associate Professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark. They have curated numerous exhibitions and projects across the world, and regularly publish essays in artist publications, exhibition catalogues, and art and cultural journals. They also participate in exhibitions with text-based and performative contributions, and lecture in art and educational contexts across Europe. Born in Los Angeles, Post Brothers completed their BFA at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver (2006), and an MA in Curatorial Practices at California College of Arts, San Francisco (2009). They live in Kolonia Koplany, a small village near Bialystok in eastern Poland.
