Young Gallery 75b Avenue Louise 1050 Bruxelles Belgique
Michael Najjar´s work series "netropolis" (2003 - 2006) is an exploration of the way global cities will develop in the future. Computer networks and the information society based on them are the main vehicles for change, the key elements transforming the face of our urban living spaces.
Exponential densification of data networks results in increasing compression of time and space. Each inflowing piece of information is a new parameter that changes the shape of the whole structure which is no longer linear based but highly interactive.
For the production of the "netropolis" series Michael Najjar traveled the globe to portray 12 megacities based on the photographs he shot from the top of the world’s highest towers.
3 years later in January 2009 Najjar stood on the summit of Mount Aconcagua, at 6,962 meters the highest mountain in the world outside of the Himalayas. The photographic material gathered in the course of a dangerous three week trek forms the basis of the "high altitude" work series (2008 - 2010).
At first glance this series might appear as just common landscape photography, but in fact its images visualize the development of the leading global stock market indices over the past 20-30 years. In "high altitude" the virtual data of stock market charts is resublimated in the craggy materiality of the Argentinean mountains cape. The jagged rock formations are emblematic of the thin edge separating reality and simulation.
Such differentiation is a key challenge for our society which is more and more driven and controlled by computer and information technology.
We might well get lost in simulation. Based on data flows