Unironic Ikonic

A vision of the world, now and in the near future, as dreamed up from within the business parks of genericised Silicon Valley, is presented in an exhibition at the Ikon Gallery in Oozells Square, Birmingham. I visited it on Saturday. Called “Internet Giants : Masters of the Universe”, and devised by Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell, it features imagery and statements relating to (primarily American) information technology companies and their bosses.  

As far as I can tell it’s not supposed to be in any way ironic, critical or cautionary. What would be the point? Ordinary folk can draw their own conclusions, while these powerful and wealthy individuals are insensitive to all uncertainties, just as (as we have seen in a number of recent cases) they are to small matters like ethics, national laws, taxation, or intellectual property rights. They’re not bothered by the doubts and quibbles of lesser mortals, and are very sure of what’s good for everyone. Some of their products can be, of course, quite handy, and very evidently, many people like to use them. Unfortunately what is on offer at Ikon is completely up-itself, obscure, joyless, and tedious. A successful exhibition, like any successful work of art, shouldn’t need long-winded accompanying documentation to tell you what it’s supposed to mean (assuming it means anything).

The explanatory printed guide refers to a series of pixellated “mosaic” icons (well, of course) of 26 IT luminaries. These are, as the leaflet says, “combined in diptychs with their inspirational utterances”. What that means is that unless you’re seriously cross-eyed – or preferably “pixellated” yourself (there’s a big Wetherspoons nearby in Broad Street) -  it’s hard to tell what or who they are. Not that it matters a great deal. Megalomania is nothing special these days.

However, there is one “inspirational utterance” that outshines all the others, and it is by Mike Krieger of Instagram, who says “just because you’ve googled something doesn’t mean you’ve learned”. That’s a golden rule of education which should be etched in big letters across the top of every screen and taught to every infant well before it reaches – puling and wailing - for its first gadget. Most of the other “inspirational utterances” in the exhibition are too embarrassingly inane to be worth repeating here; a few more are sensible but state the obvious. The following five are my shortlist for, shall we say (politely), the most frightening and deadly unironic of these “utterances”:

1) “There is an important artistic component in what we do” (Larry Page - Google)

2) “You have to make words less human and more a piece of the machine” (Marissa Mayer – Google, Yahoo)

3) “I’m trying to make the world a more open place” (Mark Zuckerberg - Facebook)

4) “We want Google to be the third half of your brain” (Sergey Brin - Google)

5) “I want to put a ding in the universe” (Steve Jobs - Apple)

I’m tempted to add a sixth: “I’m an obnoxious undersized arrogant charmless pointy-headed geek with a small penis. I have a problem with the real world, and especially with people”. (Greedy Retard - Fruitcake). Perhaps I should go back and scribble it on a wall and see if anyone notices.

Suitably unimpressed I emerged into the sunshine, smug with the thought that none of the above characters would ever understand why an Oozell can never be Square.