Hooked
The Science Gallery, Kings College London, London Bridge
21 SEPTEMBER 2018 - 27 JANUARY 2019
Free
Attached to and part of Kings College, The Science Gallery is a new events and exhibition space which opened in September this year. Hooked is the first exhibition to be held in the venue and explores various forms of addiction, and the shift from when want and desire become need and necessity.
Avoiding the obvious, Hooked does not centre around drugs or even feature them in any more than a couple of works. Instead, the exhibition explores modern day addictions to social media, gambling, and smartphones. It wants to show the audience how they may become susceptible to various forms of addictions, and how denial can work in may cunning guises when we consider something normalised. Hooked is developed in association with people who have lived through a form of addiction, and interwoven with scientific knowledge surrounding addiction from members from Kings College.
The exhibition is divided up into four sections: Natural Born Thrillers, Speed of Light, Free Will and Safe From Harm. I must admit that I didn't really get the distinctions between these sections and found quite a bit of the explanation superfluous and waffle-y. It is based around a lot of open ended questions and 'what-if's': exploring cause and effect in an inconclusive and slightly frustrating way. Of course, I get that this is keep things open to interpretation, however, I believe in a show which is largely scientific, we do need some more definitive answers.
Works which stood out in a positive way were Natasha Caruana's Curtain of Broken Dreams (2017), a structure made from pawned and discarded golden rings. Representing approximately 1% of divorces in the UK over a typical 12-month period, this work was one of the only physical sculptures within the exhibition. Another visual structure was Sugar Rush, a coffee table made from sugar, which aimed to highlight the functional fragility of consumerism and the non-stop cycle of addiction and recovery: where neither are permanent states. I thought this very clever, seeing as sugar itself is a highly addictive substance (often overlooked due to normalcy), whilst the constant breaking down and rebuilding of the table itself echoes lives destroyed through addiction in a subtle and beautiful way.
The works I didn't enjoy were not due to any flaw in their visual stimulation or potential message, but simply due to the fact that I found the ideas too open ended, metaphorical and far fetched. In short: I had no bloody idea what was going on. Rachel Maclean's Feed Me (2015), explores way to verify our own self-worth in today's insta-happy and like-driven society. A great idea in theory, and one excellently executed in Charlie Brooker's Nosedive episode of cult-hit Black Mirror. However, Maclean's video shows sexualised children and animalistic adults under surveillance in a fairy-tale town complete with weird trials and sing songs. Whilst she achieves the sinister, her over-hour long film loses interest of an audience who cannot seem to derive a clear message from the work.
Overall, I think that the visual and physical areas of the exhibition worked extremely well, however these were few and far between. The majority of the exhibition is a number of repetitive and frankly quite boring videos which are supposed to give off a larger meaning, however, in my opinion fail to capture the audience. In a scientific exhibition, I do believe that there should be less ambiguity and instead clarity and purpose. Of course, this can still be engaging and innovative, challenging the norms and pushing the boundaries, as long as it remains accessible and interesting to those who will be viewing it.
OVERALL RATING: **
https://london.sciencegallery.com/seasons/hooked
