STAY AT HOME #09
STINE DEJA
4K Zen
Press Release
PRESS RELEASE
Annka Kultys is pleased to present Stine Deja’s video 4K ZEN (2017) as the ninth instalment of the gallery’s online exhibition Stay at home, a presentation of new digital works produced by artists in response to the coronavirus pandemic. On every Sunday of the lockdown during Stay at home, a new artist will be showcased on AKG’s recently launched online platform [The art happens here]. Deja’s video is on show for the ninth week of Stay at home, following on from Jeremy Bailey’s video Nail Art Museum (2014), Marc Lee’s live streaming video TV Bot (2020), Alice Bucknell’s video Welcome to Nütropix (2020) last week, Allan Gardner’s Infowars Made Me Hardcore (2020), James Knott’s Crisis Du Jour series, Eggs (2019) and Beans in Isolation (2020), Jillian Mayer’s You’ll Be Okay, Adad Hannah’s Social Distancing Video Portraits, and the opening show, James Irwin’s Surface Collider (23032020).
AKG is also announcing all gallery benefits (i.e., profits after the artist has been compensated in the usual manner) from featured digital works sold via [The art happens here] will be donated to the National Emergencies Trust. The purchasers’ generosity will help to financially support the featured artists during this unprecedented period when non-essential shops are closed, including art museums and commercial galleries, leading to postponed exhibitions for artists, and ensuring at least part of artists’ incomes can be maintained.
As our planet continues to endure environmental, societal and political pressure, Deja offers visitors an ironic escape route away from stress into a safe and relaxing state of mind. The 4K Zen ‘distraction installation’ encourages the audience to put their worries on standby and recharge themselves physically and emotionally, via the use of an isolating hat that allows uninterrupted and mindful screen-time.
Scientific studies have revealed that we are more relaxed when we watch TV than when we sleep and that television’s ‘passive active’ state reduces our cortisol levels. In response Deja created 4K Zen, a ‘stress diet’ that promises escape from the complexity of modern life by combining the wisdom of meditation and infomercials. The immersive experience invites the user to surrender themselves to the screen’s soothing imagery and passively enter a state more restful than sleep.
BIOGRAPHY
At the heart of all of Stine Deja’s projects is a keen interest in how these heightened emotional states, often coaxed out by late capitalist narratives of self-care and guilt-free indulgence, are displaced onto the body.
Stine Deja was born in Denmark in 1986 and currently lives and works in London.
