MARCUS MÅRTENSON
SURVEILLANCE GAMES
15 APRIL - 8 MAY

Marcus Mårtenson (b.1972) works provide a mirror into a parallel reality, a simultaneous existence that we are all interplaying with. A mirror into another version of ourselves, that version that we put out there into the ‘real’ world of the internet, our ‘extreme selves’. Can you imagine life without our social media interaction? What would you do, if you couldn’t respond with an instant emoji, that fully encapsulates your emotion of that particular second? Mårtenson leads you into considering the answers and considering of the ‘self’ within that.

For the exhibition at Arsenalgatan 3, Mårtenson’s body of work has dwelled deep into the human psyche, and the gaming psychology cues that our social media tools use for our continued engagement, what Professor Shoshana Zuboff calls ‘the age of surveillance capitalism’. Mårtenson draws you in, with bright pastel crayon primary colours, catchy slogans, and always so poignant in his work, with a tongue in cheek double review. Take for example Instagram Bingo, 25 characteristics of the influencer currency – take your pick between, “beauty always wins” – “narcissistic self-marketing” or “selfie-dysmorphia” all concepts that we are all too familiar with, as brands no longer use traditional advertising space, but rather use product placement via the influencer instead.

Surveillance Games – uses what we can all recognize as the now infamous game “Monopoly” created by Lizie Magie in 1904, in part as an educational tool to deter away from the perils of landlord monopolies, and capitalism. Mårtenson, engages using the hints of the familiarity of the boardgame to inform the multiple ways in which our internet conglomerates are working with our engagement in an entirely unregulated sphere. How has that changed us as individuals, socially and philosophically? Our intake of information is no longer under our control, it can be avoided or multiplied with its reposting, and it can be whatever or however you want it to be.

Famous Conspiracy Theories Part 6 and Data is Destiny illustrate the hyper-boles that are created, the multi layered realities, the “truth” in our intake of information. The illustration of hyper-boles was most present during the Cambridge Analytica scandal and their use of Facebook as both their platform for collecting data and to feedback informatics. Technology having created what has been monumental feedback systems for calibrating (sometimes meaningless) individual ‘power’, this power directly correlated to ‘likes’, ‘reposts’ and ‘views’. The everyday private space, no longer private – the everyday life of the individual turning into monitoring, creating, engaging and reinforcing statistics. Here Mårtenson strips back, and presents each work in its purest form, black and white data mind maps, and data as a pyramid of hierarchies.

Mårtenson has found a way to slowly help us through the plethora of information, with a playful, dark and honest look at our engagement, and formulation of realities. His work using the same strategies as the internet conglomerates, in the form of gaming cues and overwhelming amount of data. Using the comedic, as the sugar in our spoonful of dark medicine.

Text by Silvana Lagos

Marcus Mårtenson (b. 1972) lives and works in Stockholm. He received his artistic training at Basis, Idun Lovén, and at Forsbergs School of Design. He holds a BA in Religious Studies from the University of Gävle. He has had solo shows at Angelika Knäpper Gallery, Lars Bohman Gallery and Galerie Forsblom, and he has participated in numerous international group shows in the US, Japan and Finland. His work can be found in Ståhl Collection, Norrköping, and with SAK, as well as in numerous private collections.