In a glass box outside the Melbourne Town Hall, a barrage of statistical clocks and live news feeds bombard us with real-time information about the world – from life-changing global events to the banal trivia of daily existence. The sheer volume is beyond cognition. And while this information is presented as fact, there is no way of verifying its accuracy.
Present Shock II, an installation by London-based art and technology practice UVA (United Visual Artists) in collaboration with Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja, makes the feeling of information overload palpable, disrupting our sense of time and cohesion. A mutually agreed-upon version of the truth collapses, opening the door to ‘post-truth’ and ‘alternative facts’.
Present Shock II highlights the difficulty of distinguishing meaningful information from noise. The installation encourages us to delve beyond the surface and scrutinize the authenticity of the information that shapes our understanding of the world.