Performing Evidence
Performing Evidence, guest curated by Anke Bangma, brings together (new) work by contemporary artists and visual documents from the history of psychology. The exhibition explores how the very making of pictures provides the conditions for the enactment of
Operating on the basis of the ‘before and after’ logic, historical documents were often demonstrative of a transformation: traumatized soldiers being cured, workers adapting to new roles, the disadvantaged child developed into a worthy citizen. But the making of these documents is not only a means of constructing proof that the subjects in the image were transformed; it becomes in itself part of that transformation, as it engages the soldiers, workers or children in the enactment of a developmental scenario.
It is the effect of such representational practices upon our self-understanding and conduct that is negotiated by the contemporary works in the exhibition. The artists explore how different representational forms – press briefings, virtual reality exposure therapy, roleplay trainings, reality TV – make us feel and act in certain ways. Performing Evidence suggests that such shaping of sentiments, attitudes and actions can be traced back to the early twentieth century.
