How To See In The Dark
Eva Davidova, Dakota Gearhart, Garrett Laroy Johnson, Alberto Ortega-Trejo
May 2nd - June 6th, 2025
Opening Reception: Friday, May 2nd, 6-9pm
Workshop: Muindi Fanuel Muindi
Organized by Center for Concrete and Abstract Machines
Co-Prosperity Gallery is pleased to present How to See in the Dark, a group exhibition organized by CCAM, the Center for Concrete and Abstract Machines, opening on May 2nd. Artists Eva Davidova (NYC), Dakota Gearhart (NYC), Garrett Laroy Johnson (Chicago), and Alberto Ortega-Trejo (Chicago) respond to the unspoken headline of our contemporary moment: the d*rk enlightenment espoused by reactionary technopriests is upon us. How to understand this moment as artists, organizers, educators, workers, dreamers? A line from cyberneticist Heinz von Foerster often quoted by Chicago activist-artist stalwart Brian Holmes gives the show its wings: “If you want to see, learn how to act.”
Of course, the quippy “how to” offers no silver bullets, but How to See in the Dark does intend to mobilize the American can-do spirit. Emphasis on spirit. The viewer is asked to “stay with the weirder" to confront ways of thinking and acting we might have dismissed, a call to break open old convictions, and a challenge to step beyond closed systems of thinking, seeing, and acting. It is a meditation on the paradox of our times, an abandonment of purity politics. The exhibition wrestles with the cycles of history and nature, from witch hunts and genocides to tectonic shifts and cosmic phenomena. In doing so, the show challenges the viewer to reckon with the current moment on more-than-human time-scales, to accept that as a best case scenario, we find ourselves experiencing the solstice of a thousand years of darkness. Through this exhibition, the artist advocates for an intergenerational project rooted in revolutionary optimism, a collective shift towards a cyber-ecological spirituality (eco-techno-theo practices) that confronts darkness head-on without the promise of salvation. An Infopoetics workshop featuring scholar Muindi Fanuel Muindi (Chicago) is offered on Saturday, May 24th. A symposium with panels and more is offered on Sunday, June 1st.