Connect Four: The Bet

The phenomenon of the bet recurs in different social contexts; from post-Fordist financial speculation to gambling, from Mephistopheles’ bet with God to the Book of Job, wagers are made on the outcome of events.

With “Connect Four: The Bet”, KW Institute for Contemporary Art continues, in the form of an exhibition, its examination of betting and speculation which also took place during “The Bet: A Study On Doubt, Contingency And Meaning In Economy And Society” performance weekend in conjunction with Foreign Affairs. Four artistic positions debate the meaning of the bet from different perspectives:

With the installation-performance cycle “Mehrung”, the artists Böhler & Orendt bring together two central aspect of the bet: belief and conjecture. As in Pascal’s wager, in which Cartesian doubt about the existence of God was skirted using a wager about God, the visitors to this new work submit themselves fully to a speculative future despite knowing that it could easily be false. The setting of “Mehrung #5” evokes a cult whose rules and rites cannot be deciphered. The object they have dedicated themselves to and worship in the manner of a religious sect is an exponential curve. The visualization of the exponential function reveals the growing progression of values in a coordinate system to be a reflection of a meritocracy in which the increase of capital is the highest priority.

In their work “Get Lost” (2007), the French duo Claire Fontaine portrays the complexity of interpersonal relationships in the capitalist system. With reference to Hamlet’s words “I did love you once”, the viewer is presented with an excess of attractive pairing options on two monitors: A surplus of photos of attractive people flicker in front of viewers, positioning the idea of love in relation to consumption and affluence. As a result, the impression emerges that love isn’t merely fleeting and entertaining, that under neo-liberalism even love and relationships are subject to the rules of the market.

The Swedish artist collective Goldin+Senneby examine the phenomenon of the bet against the background of capitalist financial speculation. In a society in which betting is largely reduced to meaningless games of chance, their work “The Discreet Charm” (2011/2012) positions economic financial strategies as the most significant bets of our time – wagers which put the existence of entire states and social systems on the line and yet can only be played and controlled by a few.

In his contribution to the exhibition, the American artist Daniel Keller speculates about the future of work. Keller negotiates utopian and dystopian ideas (by the author Martin Ford, for example) about the work structures of the future, and translates this debate into visual objects: three-dimensional PVC lettering showing mindless job descriptions from a high-tech future, in which work and jobs have to be artificially produced.