Outernet Arts & Serpentine Arts Technologies Present Gabriel Massan

Continuity Flaws: The Loophole by Gabriel Massan

• 30 July – 17 September. Every Sunday, 12-6pm. Free entry.

Outernet Arts and Serpentine Arts Technologies will unveil a digital artwork by Brazilian artist Gabriel Massan that simulates and explores the precarious conditions of life in the global present. 

Continuity Flaws: The Loophole will be presented at The Now Building. The immersive experience is free and accessible in a venue currently poised to secure its position as the leading attraction in the UK. 

Gabriel Massan's new commission critically explores the performative essence of life, drawing on decolonial, queer, and decentralised perspectives. Referencing Brazilian philosopher Denise Ferreira da Silva’s book Unpayable Debt - a Black feminist reading of race, global capitalism and futurity, Massan simulates a new world filled with digital sculpture-actors, who establish a force-field of possibility through moments of connection. Filmed from multiple perspectives, Massan offers an ecosystemic view on the realities of life and emergence in the global present, as their characters interact, unite, and bid farewell on small islands suspended in the void. This commission connects with Third World: The Bottom Dimension, Massan’s ongoing project commissioned and produced by Serpentine Arts Technologies that incorporates a video game, exhibition and web3 tokens powered by Tezos. The collaborative, multimedia exhibition with web3 tokens is on show at Serpentine until 22 October. 

Expanding their practice of critical worldbuilding, Massan actively creates spaces that promote the emergence and platforming of diverse voices. Through the use of a handheld camera technique within Unreal Engine, Massan explores the inequalities and challenges for Black existence within a global system that perpetuates cycles of precarity and inequality. The accompanying soundtrack features Massan’s distorted voice and sound design by Agazero, a producer, DJ and artist born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

GABRIEL MASSAN said:

“It’s about the potential of Black performance as a power that creates breaches in the current hegemony – a cycle of precariousness, a system built by colonial structures to maintain and lock Black existence in a position of subalternity.”

BETTINA KOREK, CEO and HANS ULRICH OBRIST, Artistic Director of Serpentine said:

“We’re delighted to collaborate with Outernet Arts to present Continuity Flaws: The Loophole. Massan’s project not only demonstrates an iterative process in terms of our relationship with the artist - supporting development of concept, game, then exhibition, but also how work like this can exist and engage across fields, building new connections between artists and society.” 

SADIQ KHAN said:

"With the rising cost of living, it is fantastic to see cultural experiences remain accessible as Outernet’s Now Building is free to visit for all."