SUMMIT

In order to demonstrate the ritual to an audience within a social context, but also more broadly perform the philosophy of the movement as a social sculpture. To borrow the term from Josef Beuys, incorporating art on a societal level with the intention of transformational impact (at least on the microcultural scale). In this way, The High Focus Institute seeks to structure a small scale social environment as a means of disseminating its philosophy, both via social experience of the immersive rituals but also via collaboration with surrounding artists.

The choice of the title “SUMMIT” deliberately evokes the ideas coming together for the purposes of sharing ideas, as well as a metaphorical high point of experience while also paying attention to the absurdity of the term used within corporate language as business and economic summits. Relating particularly to the NOW HIRING ritual and its re-imagining of economic labor towards a shared emotional sensory “doing”.

THE HIGH FOCUS INSTITUTE presents:SUMMIT. A three-day exhibition of performance and installation On the relationship between SELF NATURE & TECHNOLOGY. A large open former industrial warehouse was chosen in keeping with the ethos of operating outside the commercial gallery context, using artist run spaces. Similarly a compressed timeline of 3 days was chosen to focus attendance towards a social happening rather than a succession of individual experiences. This shortened time frame also allows for an integration between performers and constructed environments. Each artist is selected based upon prior work and provided the curatorial statement, as well as an allotment of space.

Curatorial Statement

NATURE: THE WAY THINGS ARE.

TECHNOLOGY: THE THINGS WE MAKE.

The term “technology” includes every product of human invention, from a sharpened stick to virtual networks. The things we make in turn remake us & shift our understanding of what is possible

NOW Mother Earth is Spaceship Earth. TECHNOLOGY is the condition. Nothing has not been touched by the efforts of humankind, not even the weather. Here at THE HIGH FOCUS INSTITUTE we believe that not only can we use TECHNOLOGY to shape the world around us, we can use it as a tool to reconcile ourselves to the realities of NATURE.

We strive to use TECHNOLOGY to gain control over our surroundings, and the act of engaging with those surroundings IS the story of our SELF. The process of creating things is the process of creating identity.

How do we make meaning out of the modern world, which is constructed primarily of human artifacts?

How do we use that meaning to help us understand our place in the cosmos?