United Visual Artists: Present Shock

How UVA created a sense of information overload inside the Synchronicity exhibition.

Present Shock is the first installation encountered in Synchronicity, United Visual Artists’ largest show to date. The work has its roots in UVA’s debut project, a collaboration with Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja that provided the scenography for their 100th Window tour in 2003.

In this new work, UVA continues the twenty-year long collaboration with Del Naja. The installation’s statistical clocks display life-changing global events to the banal trivia of everyday existence, and algorithmically generated headlines based on current events sourced in real-time from the internet. “It fluctuates between chaos and order,” says UVA founder Matt Clark. “It’s really about the feeling we’re trying to create of information overload, and navigating truth in the information age.”

In this video, Clark speaks to us more about how Present Shock works and some of the concepts that underpin it. Synchronicity is open until 17 December, 2023 and features new works Polyphony, Ensemble, Chromatic and Edge of Chaos. 

UVA: Synchronicity

180 Studios

180 The Strand, London, WC2R 1EA

12 October – 17 December 2023

10am – 7pm, Wednesday – Sunday (closed Mondays and Tuesdays)

For ticket sales visit: https://www.180studios.com

Watch next: United Visual Artists: Chromatic