Amygdala

The amygdala is the part of our brain responsible for the creation, storage and processing of (emotional) memories. The project is still evolving and contains single images, installations, objects, collages that express the layeredness of these memories and how they change or get coloured over time. Fragments from the past loose their context in the present and their attachment to reality gradually fades away. So do we know what actually happened and what not? Does our mind play tricks with us? Time changes everything-it’s the key of our existence.

What does the ‘like’-economy, the constant influence and exposure to disinformation mean for the future society: doesn’t the social animal, man, just become more anti-social and more alienated from reality? Information has always been considered power; however, disinformation or targeted ‘manipulated’ information yields much more power today: the total surrender of the individual to an idea. In this respect, control communism in China, cults and movements such as QAnon are not so very different. Polarizing opinions, fake news stories packaged as conspiracy theories, they are ubiquitous today. The algorithms, designed to hold the attention span as long as possible, feed the sensationalism endlessly. Technology is used by just about anyone with a commercial or political goal as the ultimate weapon to gain control over what someone thinks and how someone acts. Nocebo was initially a group project by three photographers, whose work is situated on the border between photography and visual arts. Each in their own way, Christophe Simoen, Jeroen De Wandel and Kirsi Kempkes tackled the concept of fear and the preceding mechanisms of (soft) indoctrination and lust for power. The subject allowed to think and explore art beyond their comfort zone.

“The central question running through Jeroen De Wandel’s oeuvre concerns the way our brains function and how we process information. Every day, we are confronted with a relentless flood of images, opinions, and slogans. Many of these are fake or deliberately stripped of their original context. In The Big Scroll, Jeroen confronts us with an overload of visual information. It resembles a volcanic eruption of images. At first glance, this overwhelming photomontage appears colourful and visually appealing, but a closer look reveals a considerable amount of underlying friction and tension. Suspended in the centre of the space floats a dark sculpture bearing a handwritten mantra: ‘the truth is the lie is the truth is a lie ...’ With this installation, the artist engages with our endless appetite for stimuli and sensation, feeding the dopamine-driven demands of our brains. He hopes that viewers will not simply ‘scroll’ across the images, but instead slow down their gaze, because the superficial consumption of (dis)information is gradually pushing our society towards indifference. Looking carefully is certainly not a bad place to start if we want to make our minds more receptive to what truly matters.”-Stef Van Bellingen, Warp