Otto Byström: I feel, all the time, like a garbage fire

The ever growing flood of digital media changes our ideas about ourselves and the world we live in. It alters our behaviour and ultimately the existence of humanity itself. We live in a society of likes in which everything is made as smooth and frictionless as possible, digital communication included. At the same time, our age is marked by an uncanny and numbing chaos.

Spawned by the twin pressures of liking and paranoia, we are beset by doubt, uncertainty and fear, which compel us to expose ourselves. This illusory freedom lures us into a circle of control based on ubiquitous data gathering. Individual experience and thinking are today merely raw material for hidden commercial functions. We are surrounded by the stench of accumulated exhaustion.

Otto Byström (b. 1987, Oulu) is a Helsinki-based multidisciplinary visual artist and member of the Sorbus artist collective. In his practice, he combines techniques of sculpture and printmaking with digital methods, performance, video and music. He has exhibited in Finland, Japan, Great Britain, Russia and the Czech Republic, and as member of the Sorbus collective also in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

The exhibition is generously supported by Arts Promotion Centre Finland.