Alex Knell

Alex Knell: ‘We Are Our Only Future’, 2007

My recent work has moved to examine the notions of hope and meaning. What might such elusive yet significant senses be found in today? Is it possible to locate and decipher deep meaning at all? Viktor Frankl has suggested that man’s primary drive is the will to meaning, and if that is true, where does such a will lead the individual in the surface-dominated world we live in; how do we move beyond the transitory, shallow and ultimately destructive meanings and behaviours taught, imposed and reinforced by the consumerist superstructure? Is there any space for hope left? Is there room for the genuinely unexplainable amongst the vast ocean of scientific data and information we are subsumed by? In these light box pieces, several key interests are brought together; psychedelia, advertising, song lyrics, and alternative systems of meaning. My interest with the symbolism and cultural artefacts of the 60s in particular stems from my fascination with the consensus that this was the last epoch of popular global collectivism, with the emergence of a shared view that things could be ‘better’, that progress and radical systemic change was possible. Perhaps the 1960s were the last great era of hope for Western civilisation. Knell