New light installation near Old Street roundabout opens bright window to a dark future
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Monday, October 14, 2024


New light installation near Old Street roundabout opens bright window to a dark future
WE WILL STILL BE HERE WILL WE STILL BE HER. Photo: Simon the Last.



LONDON.- At first glance, it looks like any ordinary high street shop but the signs in the window at 103 Murray Grove aren’t offering manicures or replacement phone screens. From interplanetary money transfer services to fast food made from insect protein, these garishly colourful signs flash and blink a hi-tech vision of the future rendered in low-tech LEDs.

London-based visual artist and designer Simon the Last has taken over the entire front window of a retail unit near London’s Silicon Roundabout with his new work WE WILL STILL BE HERE / WILL WE STILL BE HERE. The eye-catching installation features 10 illuminated LED shop window signs arranged in a single shopfront and imagines which products and services might be available “while-u-wait” 50 years from now. It presents today’s cutting edge technology as cheap, pedestrian high street fare. What once attracted billion-dollar market capitalisations is now seen as run-of-the-mill retail.

The inspiration for the piece came from the neighbourhoods of south and east London where Simon has lived and worked for the past 12 years. Simon comments, The chaotic aesthetic of local high streets is always anchored by these reassuringly identical LED signs. Some neighbourhoods are plagued by their ubiquitous Costas or Prets, but these unapologetically colourful billboards proudly announce the presence of an independent community and spirit.

WE WILL STILL BE HERE / WILL WE STILL BE HERE features over 3,600 individually installed LEDs and questions our relationship with emerging technologies, our worship of tech oligarchs, and the narrow visions of the future they propose. It asks whether these self-appointed architects of the future will save us from environmental and economic disaster, or if their innovations and disruptions only accelerate our demise - if they move us forward, or keep us exactly where we are.

Simon continues to say, With WE WILL STILL BE HERE / WILL WE STILL BE HERE, I want to present today’s cutting edge/near-future technology as a cheap, pedestrian, high street offering. From the outside the spectacle is alluring, but behind it is an empty space - a colourful promise with nothing to back it up. I want to present a future where shiny things that once attracted billion-dollar market capitalisations are now run-of-the-mill retail, and nothing has changed for the better.

You can visit the installation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.










Today's News

January 17, 2022

Facing violence with brushes and ballots

Exhibition presents recent unique prints made at the visionary print studio Two Palms

Exhibition brings together significant works from 1978 to 2018 by Ettore Spalletti

Exclusive Palmer Museum of Art exhibition explores evolution of abstraction in the 1940s

Vintage work mixes with new images in new exhibition at Janet Borden Inc.

Exhibition brings together images Alec Soth completed between 2018 and 2021

Sherrill Roland's first exhibition with Tanya Bonakdar Gallery on view in New York

20 years later, the story behind the Guantánamo photo that won't go away

Bonhams' inaugural anime sale offers rare original works from beloved classics

One indelible scene: When a woman takes the wheel in 'Licorice Pizza'

James Cohan opens 'A Través', a group exhibition

Camden Art Centre opens Julien Creuzet's first institutional exhibition in the UK

Sotheby's Masters Week spans millennia of art history with $40 million Botticelli masterpiece

Exhibition looks at the importance of light and how its treatment has evolved in Faroese art

South African artist Kendell Geers opens an exhibition at Carpenters Worksop Gallery

Leading bookseller's private collection goes up for sale

Annet Gelink Gallery opens the group show 'Blindenzimmer'

Towers rise over London's Brick Lane, clouding its future

Kenechukwu Victor's first in-person solo exhibition with Thierry Goldberg opens in New York

signs and symbols opens its first solo exhibition of works by Adam Broomberg

Nara Roesler New York opens a retrospective of Brazilian artist Abraham Palatnik

New light installation near Old Street roundabout opens bright window to a dark future

Janet Rady Fine Art opens new online exhibition Carnivals of Clouds

Exhibition presents highlights from the Kinsey African American Art and History Collection

Inspiring and emotional for the Day of March 8

How to choose a perfect ladies t-shirt?

5 Lesser-Known Things You'll Learn About In Couples Counseling




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful