A discussion of what camouflage means now can get very far without engaging the question of the role and the sense of concealment in our society.

The huge offensive of digital technologies in all the areas of life has tremendously expanded the field of visibility and the very structure of visual cognition and recognition systems have been resized according to new visual parameters. Despite these developments, one of the main paradoxes of our times is that that the visible is no longer important. Instead, the invisible and the so called “selective detection of unfolded surfaces of unfolded information” became the dominant model we have to cope with and take into consideration. This process of folding and unfolding information (in Deleuzian’s pleas of the visible) - is a key issue for understanding the major transformations we have witnessed over the last decade. Everything around us has become more and more invisible: from military to technology, financial institutions and the move of capital, nanotechnology and bio-cybernetics. And the list could continue indefinitely.

The power has shifted to those who are able to bypass the classic ways of transmitting information and who have the means and knowledge to develop these invisible modes of communication and enfoldment.
Defining the terms of invisibility became an issue only after the 9.11 Al Qaida attacks. The so called “war on terrorism” requested the public acknowledgment of the existence of invisible media, but it has also made visible which strategies for concealing the Western camps use in order to contra-attack potentially dangerous elements of Western democracy.

It is not my aim to engage a discussion on the military techniques of coding and decoding the vast amount of collected data or to detect who is the enemy of Western Democracy, but to point to the essence of recent developments, underlining that under such circumstances we have to radically change our approach in comprehending the actuality.

“No technique is innocent, no technique is good in itself” , remarks the distinguished researcher in invisible media- Laura U. Marks. She is precisely referring to the fact that these new media are deeply embedded in their commercial exploitation and that is very hard to use a new medium differently from the way that it was designed for us to use it.

In this respect, creativity now means either to intervene on the level of the code or to escape the limits of representation. I assume that one of the reasons that we are returning to so called “traditional” modes of expressions is because most artists have experienced for themselves the limits of these new media technologies. Despite the huge amount of labor that has been used in writing computer code, technology remains just technology, it is only a tool, it does not provide any room for a true expansion of creativity and content.
I will not go further in explaining what creativity means now, but I would rather try to draw a possible framework for a better comprehension of the visual construction of ‘the social’ as revealed by contemporary artistic expression.

While tackling the issues of concealment another aspect that is essential is media’s failure in ensuring the right critical climate within society. Not only that critique itself has become a lifestyle, a kind of fashionable, superficial activity that is drafted and prepared for sale, but the ethical has been completely subsumed by a consumerist society.

Behind the (iron) curtains of our ignorance and with our own consignment, the so called “libidinal capitalist economy” is about to become the new rule of the world. Within this new phase of the capitalism – as it has been defined by Bernard Stiegler, the uncontrolled desires and behaviors are immediately saturated through an offer that will over satisfy any need. This perverse mechanism of oversatisfaction creates only more distance between us and the real world, and at the same time it neutralizes, tames and defeats everything that is against the mainstream. Within such a generalized context of oversatisfied desires, critique has completely lost its voice and those who still dare to criticize the state of things are as rare as the most endangered species.

One of the reasons I have decided to start an investigation on the artistic critiques and reactions to the various forms of camouflage is because I would like to draw everyone’s attention not on the concealed issues that are contained in artists’ works, but on the great importance of these ambivalent revealing/ hiding and folding/ unfolding processes.

However, this process of de-camouflaging the power strategies and cleansing cosmetic technologies can harm and is almost always wrongly perceived. “Unmasking could turn out to be just another deceptive technology leading to a new idolatry” - the philosopher Emilian Cioc observes. “This could be another reason for imagining a way of thinking and practicing existence without the claim of purity, authenticity or hidden truth but asserting its priceless precariousness. The task of existential technologies consists from now on in making bearable this time of absence, this experience of destitute times” . The dramatic truth is that the truth itself might be perceived as the biggest lie. A sort of re-fictionalization of reality it seems to be always necessary in order to accept not the entire truth but a certain form it.

According to Neil Leach, the culture of the bearable, the so called “aesthetical camouflage” has a tremendously positive role in helping us relate to the world and overcoming feelings of alienation . But again as Stiegler has already warned us, within the over consumerist society and in complicity with media and creative industries -these tactics are mainly oriented to mislead. The beautiful has always been a natural reflex of society, but now it seems that it became the tool for deception and manipulation rather than a positive element of individual reinsertion in society.

The contra-argument of Neil’s Leach thesis of cultural camouflage is that “ideology itself can be characterized as a form of camouflage that veils the manufacture of consent behind a screen of misinformation, media distortions and affective manipulation” .

Consequently, the camouflaging techniques are alternating from violence to aesthetics, from politics to daily life and finally from defensive tactics to large scale processes of social leveling. If we take into consideration the fact that the structural relation between the bios
and the cyber is under the pressure of a constant renegotiation, then we might get the right picture of the ambiguous context in which these practices are experimented.

It is precisely through the acknowledgment of such seeming contradictions and ambiguities that this exhibition proceeds. My aim is to investigate to which degree artists reflect in their works these dual relations, and to what extent they accentuate and reveal the actual situation of visual incongruity.
Therefore I propose a different reading of this topic through the eyes of the artists I have invited to participate at this exhibition.

The reason I conceived this exhibition in this particular way is that I consider art as the single and the most privileged area where certain truths can be revealed. Digging through the thick strata of historical lies and providing a deep cleansing to shiny sparkliness has been a favorite sport of artists throughout all epochs worldwide.

One of the great things about art is that it fights against the instrumentality of vision and resists all kinds of leveling and regulations. Many things that are taken for granted by the mainstream media are always questioned. If nothing else, it may shake up our senses, obliging us to look at our world with fresh eyes and cope with the most uncomfortable problems with an open mind.
This exercise might awaken our sense of wonder and make us aware that the world we live in is not only idealistic and cynical, thoughtful and thoughtless, brave and fearful, strong and vulnerable but enormously beautiful.

My gratitude goes to Melle Hendrikse, the owner of C-Space gallery in Beijing and a great friend, whose personal support and financial contribution was essential in putting together this exhibition. I highly appreciate his commitment in presenting such kind of international exhibitions that gathers artists from so different areas of the world.

Many thanks to galleries Martin Van Zomeren and Ron Mandos from Amsterdam and carlier/gebauer Berlin who have supported us from the very beginning in the organization of this project and to Arne Hendriks, who have contributed with a beautiful text to this catalogue.

Last but not least, I would like to address my heartfelt thanks to all the artists involved in this exhibition: Emily Bates, Alexandra Croitoru & Stefan Tiron, Xing Danwen, Boukje Janssen, Sagi Groner , Chris Jones, Iosif Kiraly, Ana Maria Micu, Sebastian Diaz Morales, Catalin Petrisor, Victor Racatau, Kathrin Schlegel, Marike Schuurman, Levi van Veluw and Carine Weve.

Maria Rus Bojan

Amsterdam 12, November 2008

English proofreading: James Burke