Hyper-Normalisation: Morten Lassen

The art of Morten Lassen deals with “that which we cannot see”—the world of transition and transmission. Data: images, words and indeed emojis, beams throughout the world in real time between devices in the cyberspace. It has been the driving theme in his practice for over a decade. Lassen, working as a latter-day Kandinsky, finds pictorial rhythms in the ether. He is an artist who images the unimageable.

Hyper-normalisation is an exhibition that explores cyberspace further than the utopian information paradise that it is often portrayed as.  In our data-filled world of social media and newsfeeds, Lassen asks us what happens when this world is hijacked—when we begin to ask; “Am I pretty enough?”  “Am I successful enough?” “Do I love my country enough?“.

It is apparent that the infiltration and direction of the data we are exposed to has the power to make a reality TV star—the most powerful man in the world.  Subliminal and manipulative messaging is layered—hidden between holiday snaps and social media critiques from the virtual soapbox of people’s fingertips.

With so much information, the depth of our true understanding of anything becomes ever shallow. Two hundred and eighty characters now describes momentous moments in history. Our view of the world is becoming increasingly pixilated and distorted—blurred like a kaleidoscope in motion.