That Sinking Feeling

About

'Oumuamua, the first alien rock to travel here from another star, moves past the earth with indifference to the existential crisis facing the planet’s inhabitants. The scout from afar is strange, as are we. In fact, as we race to understand more, we become even stranger, as do the objects and phenomena we encounter. Much of human endeavour since the Enlightenment has focused on knowing, categorising and mastering the world around us ⎯ yet as we hack our way through this jungle of complexity we discover that truth really is stranger than fiction. The pursuit of understanding and technological advance led to what many consider to be a new epoch in the history of our planet - the Anthropocene - a period defined by the geological impact of humans, perhaps most clearly demonstrated through global warming. But how do we face this? How do we explain it to ‘Oumuamua? Philosopher Timothy Morton says 'We must create frameworks for coping with a catastrophe that, from the evidence of the hysterical announcements of its imminent arrival, has already occurred'.

That Sinking Feeling is a collaborative installation that dives into the soup of our current predicament. It seeks to reflect the relationships we have with this reality, the artefacts we create in our pursuit of progress, and the confused emotional state we find ourselves in. Combining film, sculpture and sound, the exhibition favours a lyrical approach ⎯ to use the vernacular of internet memes: ‘That feeling when… you realise you’re in the middle of a slow-motion apocalypse and you haven’t done your homework.’

ARM are a group of artists and producers working together in sound, image, digital technology, installation and research. https://arm.parts/

Navid Asghari is a sound artist whose compositions have featured in BAFTA winning short films; James Moss is an artist, performer and exhibitions curator at the historical Portico Library in Manchester, and David Rogerson is a London-based producer, former head of Experience Design studio icoEx and former Director of Digital & Publishing at Sonic Arts Network.