The internationally renowned artists’ collective DIS, who curated the 9th Berlin Biennale, are now coming to Copenhagen. The exhibition DIS presents: What Do People Do All Day? shows a selection of spectacular video works from the newly developed video platform dis.art as well as cinematic settings and installations that question the future of society – and what we humans do in our everyday lives to influence that future.

Through the medium of film, the video platform dis.art aims to convey a range of ideas conjured up by artists, filmmakers and thinkers, all of which posit the future of learning as edutainment. At the exhibition DIS presents: What Do People Do All Day? visitors can experience a selection of films from dis.art that highlight DIS’s current fixations: the nature of ‘belonging’ in a rootless, networked world; the advent of suburbia; artificial intelligence; the relationships between technology, vision, and power; and the future of work:

“The environment is collapsing and we spend our days clicking and scrolling, recirculating images and rarely reading beyond headlines, while the deeper story becomes increasingly impossible to grasp. Despite our technocapitalist present, people still serve meals, clean spaces and transport things from one place to another”. – DIS, New York

The title What Do People Do All Day? is taken from Simon Dybbroe Møller’s new episodic series, a contemporary update to Richard Scarry’s 1968 children’s book of the same name in which cute animal characters embody their straightforward professions. Simon Dybroe Møller has just been appointed Professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts’ Sculpture School in the autumn of 2019 and contributes a new work to the exhibition.

Juxtaposing surface and complexity, past and futurity, pedagogy and art, the exhibition poses this highly pertinent question – what do people do all day? – in order to point out the passivity of our current era and to actively inquire what should be done.

Participating artists:
Hannah Black (UK), Derek Larson (USA), Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman (USA), Ilana Harris-Babou (USA), Will Benedict (USA) & Steffen Jørgensen (Denmark), Olivia Erlanger (USA) & Luis Ortega Govela (Mexico), Meriem Bennani (Morocco), Simon Dybbroe Møller (Denmark), Theo Anthony (USA), Darren Bader (USA), Stefanie Schwarzwimmer (Germany), Ryan Trecartin (USA), Amalia Ulman (Argentina), Malte Zander (Austria), DIS (USA), and more.

DIS consists of Lauren Boyle, Solomon Chase, Marco Roso and David Toro. Created in 2010, the artists’ collective has previously been part of the New Museum Triennial Surround Audience (2015), the group exhibition Co-Workers at the Musée Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2015) and the New Photography show at the MoMA in New York (2015). The collective has curated the 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art The Present in Drag (2016), participated in the group exhibition I was Raised on the Internet at MCA in Chicago (2018), curated and participated in Genre-Nonconforming: The DIS Edutainment Network at the De Young in San Francisco (2017-18), Thumbs that Type and Swipe at Casa Encendida in Madrid (2018), and A Good Crisis at the Baltimore Museum of Art (2018).

DIS presents: What Do People Do All Day? is curated by DIS, created in collaboration with Tranen – Rum for Samtidskunst and presented in collaboration with CPH:DOX.

The exhibition is supported by Augustinus Fonden, Beckett-Fonden, Bikubenfonden, Knud Højgaards Fond, Det Obelske Familiefond, Statens Kunstfond, and sponsored by Egetæpper, Genbyg and Imagework.