Le règne des vérités gnomiques

The multi-artist exhibition Universal Code: Art and Cosmology in the Information Age, shown at The Power Plant in Toronto during the summer of 2009, had all the earmarks of a meretricious celebration of bogus commonality. Planned to mark the International Year of Astronomy, the show offered work “against the backdrop of developments within contemporary culture ranging from DNA research and the politics of the night sky to Morse code, corporate communication networks and migration patterns.” By “drawing inspiration from the cosmos,” the exhibition reflected “on the changing nature of time and space.”1 1  - Excerpt of promotional document from The Power Plant, for the exhibition Universal Code.

This is the sort of rhetoric that gives the adjective “universal” a bad name, well intentioned everything-and-nothing blather that can suck the air out of any room in which it is read or uttered. The oddly dated phrase “information age,” meanwhile, could not fail to arouse suspicion that it was being used ironically — for how could it be used seriously? At the very least, The Power Plant director Gregory Burke, who curated the show, was fixed in the unenviable position of having to generalize about works so diverse they almost defy classification. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the Board of Directors of The Power Plant but have had no hand in the curation of this or any other show there.)