About the Exhibit

I’ve seen a lot of exhibitions, but I’ve never seen anything like Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe’s exhibition, COLONY SOUND, at Marlborough Gallery in London (Fall 2019). I actually laughed out loud as I wrote this thinking about the poor gallery assistant that had to transcribe the press release from what I can only imagine were Freeman and Lowe’s intense and detailed ramblings. 

“Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe take dystopian readings of American history and spike them with mind-melting drugs.” - Frieze (source)

The show is by no means short on imagination and I will probably not do it justice by giving my summary of their fictional world, but here goes…

The artists have created a fictional universe called the “San San.’ Now in the San San there are few entities to learn. 

COLONY SOUND - is a “youth gang in the Nippono-Caribbean immigrant communities of the San San.” 

A CELL - an underground bunker in Ohio 

THE SMILE - the first biological network to be used for mass transmission of reprogramming someone’s identity 

PSYCHIC DRIVING - a psychiatric technique that reprograms someone’s identity.

THE GLASS FIELD - new real estate development built from abandoned shopping malls

If you get lost at any point just refer back to these terms.

Ok cool, now that we have the definitions. The ‘story’ or the exhibition, in this case, is all about the evolution of this technology called ‘The Smile’ - which seems to be a freaky way to biologically reprogram a population’s identity at mass. Think mass brainwashing.

It was buried in A CELL - this bunker in Ohio that existed from a cold war California - very Silicon Valley gone bad…Some time later this youth gang - Colony Sound, finds The Smile and instead of using it to brainwash the masses, they repurpose it to spread “new forms of youth rebellion; music, individuality and alternative lifestyles.” So dope

But like with all good things...this soon came to an end. These ‘subcultures’ soon became mainstream, and “The Smile becomes the vehicle for the 21st century marketing of total leisure environments and affirmation capitalism.” Bummer. 

The stomping grounds of the COLONY SOUND turns into THE GLASS FIELD, which sounds like a shiny strip mall, and “The Smile becomes the telecommunication network for a deranged wellness program.” 

“The Glass Field functions like an island seemingly separate and self-contained. These islands are then connected through The Smile which brings a seamless exchange of fantasies.” Which really doesn’t sound that bad.

And that’s where it ends. I guess we’ll have to wait for Freeman and Lowe’s next show to understand what happens in the next chapter. 

About the Artists

Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe have been working together since 2007, creating art installations that are literally, out of this world. 

“Installation artists Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe fuse film, sound, and architectural elements to transform exhibition spaces into a world where reality is composed of materiality and people are thus once removed.” - Artspace (source) 

Jonah Freeman received his BFA from NYU and received The Richard Kelly Grant in 2002. Justine Lowe received a BA from Hampshire College and an MFA from Columbia University in 2004.