An exhibition exploring satire, cynicism and the figure of the jester in contemporary life, on display in Philadelphia from July 17-August 17, 2015.

The exhibition takes its title from sociologist Sherry Turkle's seminal publication of the same name about identity in the age of the internet (1997), which explores the dramatic shifts in notions of self, other, machine, and world in a digital era. The adoption of online personae, she argues, has contributed to a shift away from traditional, unitary notions of self towards more fluid, fragmentary and performative identities. Building upon Turkle's observations, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries were commissioned to construct a new persona, one that responds to the pervasive sense of disillusionment today with civil society and political representation.

The persona Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries has created in response to our initial conversations - "Bozo On the Boom Boom Badass Beat" - appropriates this cynicism, as well as figures including the clown, the trickster, and the fool. The jester, a paid fool, is someone who has been afforded certain freedoms from societal constraint, and is thus able to proclaim otherwise inappropriate positions. Though oftentimes dismissed as foolish or mad, the fool nevertheless tells us truths couched in cliché and humor - such as, in this work, that "the world is fucking falling apart" (2:45 min) or that the Millennial generation relates "more to a smiley face than the President of the United States" (3:26 min).

Why did we turn to art in exploring these themes and questions? We did so because artists, unlike activists and others, often do not meet with resistance when they broach them. The artist is a sort of paid jester, and occupies a position that is often not taken seriously.

Artists are supposed to entertain us; for this reason, they are exempt from various codes of behavior concerning social etiquette. This phenomenon has been referred to historically by Rabelais and others as "The Jester's Privilege," or the special ability that some in society have to engage in otherwise inappropriate forms of commentary.