Sugar Coating

Cristiana Cott Negoescu shows as part of “Zeitbilder” Sugar Coating, a performative installation, dealing with uncritical media consumption as “sugar for the people”. The fairground aspect of the installation with a slide and the smell of freshly prepared candy floss also stands for the distraction of attention and the filtering of circumstances. In this way, time-based art presents itself in a plethora of manifestations that provide critical and sensual inventories of our present at the height of our time.

Idea:

The inspiration for the performance environment and spatial installation Sugar Coating by Cristiana Cott Negoescu is rooted in an old Romanian proverb: “Țara arde și baba se piaptană” (“The world is burning, and the old lady brushes her hair”). This saying can be understood as an expression of ignorance toward pressing issues. The fact that many people around the world today have become Candy Crush masters (a popular free mobile/ tablet game using candy as game pieces) or are addicted to reality shows highlights the relevance of such ignorance. Uncritical media consumption as “sugar for the people” is made evident in the trailers for fictional bachelor and cooking shows, which Cott Negoescu produced with ChatGPT 4.0 (an AI-based program) and which can be viewed in the exhibition space from a reclining chair. 

Cognitive avoidance, the turning away from urgent political or personal issues, often arises from a combination of fear, uncertainty, or a desire for relaxation. Cognitive avoidance is not unusual; it is part of human nature. For example, the scandal involving Cambridge Analytica showed how people around the world are influenced by attractions, games, memes, trends, and other forms of psychological targeting (“microtargeting”). 

“Sugar Coating” is an English phrase referring to the “sweetening” of facts or events — the cotton candy machine attached to a slide in the installation can also be seen as a depiction of distraction and “whitewashing” of unpleasant circumstances. Cotton candy is associated with carefree childhoods, fairs, and the performative creation of the sweet treat. 

Nowadays, there are high-tech cotton candy machines capable of generating perfect sugar flower formations. Most people do not fully eat a portion of cotton candy but instead buy the product
for the feeling of “sweet comfort.” This sentiment is also conveyed by the series Joy in short I-V, abstract photographs in lightboxes of delicate, airy sugar formations, which at times resemble human organs. The centrally placed neon sign drives the point home: We have something for everybody. 

A documentation created by the artist can be viewed on a monitor during the exhibition’s run, interwoven with her AI video Overcoat. 

Text by Elke Kania, curator of Zeit-Bilder Erscheinungsformen zeitbasierter Kunst, Kunsthaus NRW Kornelimünster Aachen.

Performers: Lea Frensch, Markus Henschler, and Emma Rüther.

Links:

• Annoucement on Website of Kunsthaus NRW Kornelimünster (in German)

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