“SHALLOW WATERS” by Davit Karapetyan
In 1932, Aldous Huxley published the dystopian book “Brave New World”, where he describes a society controlled not by the power of the boot, but by brainwashing, banning the family and encouraging unlimited polygamy, maintaining “happiness” through regular intake of the drug Soma. With this book, Huxley tried to predict the direction that a society could take that was already developing mass urbanization, mass production and mass media. As the social critic Neil Postman commented – “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, because there would be no one to read it. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and selfishness. Orwell feared that the truth would be hidden from us. Huxley feared that the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared that we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared that we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with superficial and fleeting entertainments.”
Now, we are all currently part of a technological reality unprecedented in human history. We are all walking in the streets with media companies in our pockets, accessing fractals of windows within windows within windows of information.
Are these new mediums designed to boost our thinking and creativity or drown them in a sea of irrelevance? In his attempts to answer this question, Davit Karapetyan mixes methods of digital collage, painting, photography, and graphic design to produce a collection of works for this first exhibition in his native city.
October 10 – November 04
NPAK, 2025
