A Visibility Matrix, by Sven Anderson & Gerard Byrne, at The Douglas Hyde Gallery

A Visibility Matrix unfolds as a response to the ambitions of abandoned art and technology projects from the 60s, 70s and 80s that prioritized multiscreen video projection, monitor arrays, communications networks and algorithmic composition principles. These projects explored visual excess and hyperstimulation before the development of the Internet and multi-screen video displays expanded into everyday public and private life.

Exploring the paradigms of what we see and how we construct visual knowledge, A Visibility Matrix returns to the instincts of these projects. It proposes a condensed counterpoint to the migratory, hyper-networked nature of visibility in contemporary culture by conjuring an offline matrix of video material presented in the gallery space for communal observation. The artwork speculates on an alternative to the composite formed by subject + smartphone + online-video-sharing-platform that has come to represent the current standard of visibility. It gathers content through an associative network of collaborators including visual anthropologists, cinematographers, documentary filmmakers and others from across the globe. By shifting focus from the production of images for sharing online to their reception in a shared, fixed-time spatial context, A Visibility Matrix offers another window on visual excess, confronting its own situated spatiality in order to reflect the more universal conditions that it addresses. 

A Visibility Matrix manifests as a network of screens and spatial gestures, in which we observe images being duplicated, mirrored and displaced. These gestures unfold over days and months of exhibition, pursuing both repetition and re-assembly. This system speculates on the possibilities of video not as passive image but as an active signal, and the gallery as a site of condensation; a shared space and a space of reflection.

A Visibility Matrix collaborators:

Daniel & Marie Ley Adams, Rosa Aiello, Matt Bakkom, Rosa Barba, Eric Baudelaire, Beat Detectives, John Beattie, Ericka Beckman, Maeve Brennan, Andreas Bunte, Duncan Campbell Jonas Dahlberg Matija Debeljuh Dennis Del Favero Willie Doherty, Jeanette Doyle, Moritz Fehr, Diego Ferrari, Darko Fritz, Rene Gabri & Ayreen Anastas, Mariam Ghani & Chitra Ganesh, Ross Gibson, Judith Goddard, Igor Grubic, Jennie Guy, Louis Haugh, Kathy Alta, Klara Hobza, Jere Ikongio & Katja Kellerer, Iván Marusic Klif, John Lalor, Charles Lim, Jeanne Liotta Lovid, Hrvoje Mabic, Nicholas Mangan, Fiona Marron, Ed Mattiuzzi, Peter Maybury, Ronan McCrea, Conor McGarrigle, Toni Mestrovic, Abinadi Meza, Suzanne Mooney, Mosireen Nadija Mustapic, Rosalind Nashisibi, Arnont Nongyao, Tadhg O'Sullivan, Dietmar Offenhuber, Jack Phelan, Piyarat Piyapongwiwat, Jason Quinlan, Eugenia Raskopoulos, Lucy Raven, Ben Rivers, Karl Ingar, Røys Sekuler, Craig Smith, Adam Smith, Michael Bell, Sean Snyder, Stephanie Spray, Danae Stratou, Daniel Von Stürmer, Jose Carlos Teixeira, Leslie Thornton, Gabriele Trapani, Sara Velas, Clemens von Wedemeyer, Gracia Weir, Jeremy Krzysztof, Wodiczko Galés y Tintin Wulia.