Boiling point

Los Angeles – Group exhibition How To Water contrasts the deluge of content online with the scarcity of water in the physical world.

• California is entering the fourth year of a catastrophic drought
• Americans spend more than 10 hours a day consuming some kind of media, according to ZenithOptimedia

How To Water invites viewers to examine ‘materiality, fluidity and temporality – shared characteristics of both the internet and water’. Described as a ‘slow performance’, the multimedia exhibition at the Eastside International gallery includes work from artists such as Adam Ferriss, whose swirling digital displays evoke a boundless blue sea in sharp contrast to the brutal drought taking over the golden state.

Through How To Water, curators Shelley Holcomb and Theo Triantafyllidis seek to discuss technology’s role in alleviating the effects of such crises. ‘As our localised crisis continues to grow and our reservoirs drain barren, will technology present a promising sea for preservation or simulation?’

The Big Picture: The gap between technological progress and environmental collapse is becoming more extreme. For more on the future of the living world, read our macrotrend Whole-system Thinking.