FROM MY DESERT accompanies a young investor into the freeport in Geneva to a meeting arranged by his art dealer to review the terms and conditions of his most recent asset. When the purchase contract is concluded, the artwork will be stored in the tax-free zone for the next several years, until its market value increase makes a resale lucrative. Through labyrinthine aisles in the style of computer games, the computer-generated character moves through the strictly secured warehouse, built to preserve the anonymity of its customers, to a private, air-conditioned showroom. There, the investor meets the famous portrait of Martin Luther (1528) by Lucas Cranach the Elder. “He was exhilarated about this first meeting. This kind of investment was new to him. Tangible assets were not his main forte, but since 2008 the art market had become the more stable and profitable choice. He opened the heavy bullet-proof door to the private showroom. [...] He was mounted on the wall and illuminated by various spotlights. On this occasion, they saw each other for the first time. “Oh yeah, you‘re all mine now,” said the investor out loud. [...] He looked him deep in his eyes and was so impressed at how vividly they were painted. [...]” However, what’s supposed to be simply a tangible asset turns out to be so much more. Suddenly, the investor thinks he hears the painting speak, then he receives a friendly smile from Luther. A budding friendship begins between the investor and the reformer, they talk about “typical guy stuff” – such as how to use political power and loyalty to get ahead, and let others do the work while pursuing own interests. Soon, the young investor develops unknown erotic feelings for the serious and manly-looking Martin. Whenever he can, he visits him for a tête-à-tête in the “dark room”. However, Martin’s attention expires when the investor, who can’t bear the thought of losing his “beautiful prisoner”, becomes weak and loses sight of the common goal: the profitable resale. Intelligently and with humor, Veneta Androva traces the grotesque absurdity of an art market that has degenerated into pure speculation and the questionable role of freeports, conjuring up the mutual attraction of “Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism” (as in the famous work of Max Weber published in 1905), and amalgamates in the hand-painted, animated portrait of “Martin” – in the installation it is already placed in the transport box instead of in the museum – digital animation and painting.… >>>
The exposed buttocks of a male nude, shown drying himself after having taken a bath, created such an uproar in a Brussels art exhibition in 1888 that the offending painting, “Homme au bain” [Man at His Bath], was quickly taken down so as to avoid attracting further attention. The framed view of a naked male arse, which the Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte offered here to a specialized public, was unheard of: almost as if someone had accidently opened the bathroom door but decides not to be ashamed of the desire to watch, but on the contrary invites to share the sensual sight. 130 years later, a mother and her son visit a museum in Boston where, only recently and despite a great deal of resistance, this exact same picture had been purchased for its collection. The woman takes a snapshot with her mobile phone. One of countless images taken during her travels in the USA, where her son studies art. The photo in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, as if by chance, shows Caillebotte’s male nude and, in the foreground and somewhat blurred, the head of her son, frozen in the beginning of a rotation – towards or away from “Man at His Bath”. There it is again – the indecent view and the desire while looking, captured by the mother as though it were evidence. Interestingly, Guanyu Xu selects just this sight, the sight of his own mother watching his life, to talk about the permanent crossroads of seemingly incompatible realities. One close look, which is, however, blind to the gay desire of her son. With the private photo archive of his mother, who lives in China, Xu weaves animated flight simulation through complex formations, a type of queered cartography without clear locating. From this visual web, a story unfolds, based on audio recordings of conversations between Xu and the mother, who is a master of diplomacy. With unbelievable eloquence, she playfully brings together the incompatible: the “Internationale” and turbo-capitalism, art – but without politics please, immigration yes – immigrants rather no. Mrs Xu’s ideological mixing-technique, with which she has arranged the global complexity in the COMPLEX FORMATION, is that of the privileged. Her son cannot openly establish himself with his desire and the associated politics. He must use the space between the snapshots: the reverse side of Xu’s video projection screen shows a photo of the artist as he, in the absence of his parents and without further ado, declares the home living room in Beijing an exhibition venue for his art that his mother wouldn’t like to photograph.… >>>
The two avatars Ashley and Allison are virtual assistants who are brought to life as projections onto human silhouettes. Artist Malin Kuht allows them to critically reflect in conversation on their existence. In doing so, she examines the function and impact virtual assistants have on people. OFFREAL is based on research into the development and application of voice user interface. Formative for the artist’s exploration was the concept of immersion – the plunge into virtual surroundings. The intensity of immersion is determined by the level of communicability in the interaction between person and machine. Voice control intensifies immersion, making it almost possible for the user to forget that his counterpart is a machine. The installation plays with the perception of the physical and the artificial, and provokes moments of the so-called “uncanny valley” – a paradoxical effect in the acceptance of particularly human-like artificial figures on the viewer (acceptance gap). Virtual assistants are very similar to people, but are not always convincingly realistic: Their lips never move quite naturally in sync with the spoken text, and Allison’s cough repeatedly exposes her as artificial and reminds us that, normally, female impersonators are created without human weaknesses or mistakes. In addition, much of the voice command applications are, by default, set as female voices. This simulation of forms of femininity is a topic of discussion for Ashley and Allison, and shows the extent to which the concept of service and care still has female connotations. Indeed, Ashley is actually employed as a virtual nurse for human patients, for example. Her appearance and voice were developed by ODDCAST, a provider of text-to-speech software. The possibility of discrimination on the basis of this simulated femininity has long been part of the code for female impersonators. Alexa has a host of answers readily available should she be confronted with harassment. OFFREAL offers the viewer a new perspective – by letting the virtual assistants speak for themselves.… >>>
“This is amazing! Oh my god my hands are shaking!” Haul. Unboxing. ASMR. Smiling, touching, caressing, tapping, stomping. Dozens of fragments from YouTube-videos, from which the artist collective NEOZOON assembles new consumer bodies. Ecstatic exclamations, rhythmic sounds, a swelling beat of shameless climaxes, moments of pure joy, orgasmic fulfillment … Oh yes, we are fucked. NEOZOON confronts us with a reality that we cannot escape any longer. Because it is not the others that we see – it is us, caught up in our own role as perpetual consumer, free to make new decisions all over again, just to find happiness. FragMANts is a spectacle that springs from the direct interface of virtual and material reality. And it is an extremely painful picture that the artists, in their secret complicity with YouTube, wring from our reality. It’s the tragicomic swan song to the absurd ideology of the enlightened, mature consumer, who, with their purchase decisions, could determine or even influence social developments. With their painstakingly acidic archive-work, NEOZOON shows us the unleashed image productions on the Internet and point out how we all share these billion-dollar budgets of advertising, how we all work together in seducing, inciting and exploiting one other. But the elitist gaze is fatal; FragMANts makes it clear that we have nothing under control anymore. It is way too late now. And I catch myself thinking that I might want to stand on the other side of the picture, not doubting, cynical, disgusted, but enjoying all the moments of happiness, making ecstatic faces, cheering blissfully. Why not surrender and savor all the charms and moments of happiness which we impose on each other? Why struggle against something that has long since permeated and captured us in every single one of our conditionings? It is clear to all of us that, ultimately, the bill will come, that all the millionfold luck will not have been for free, that we will have all accepted servitude to an unparalleled snowball system. But until then, the rapture may still be enhanced. And all that remains is the hope that we possibly won’t have to survive to witness the very end.… >>>
In the past, three minutes and a few extra seconds fit on the reel of a Super 8 film. So the little monologues, for which Jan Peters has positioned himself in front of his camera on his birthday every year since 1990, sometimes get abruptly cut off. The material contained a technological boundary that the subject had to adhere to. And this was exactly what the German private documentary filmmaker was looking for – he wanted to confront himself with a medium that forced him to extreme concentration, giving measure to his otherwise unspectacular self-portrayal. Between 1990 and 2019, Jan Peters celebrated his birthday thirty times with a recording. It began with the words ”This is a young men film” when he was 24 years old. He celebrated his 40th birthday with a wild dance without sound. In between, a life proceeds in fast motion with annual leaps in time. “But I still haven’t figured out the meaning of life” – this lightly made remark became the title of the sequence film, in which Jan Peters montages his birthday films until this day. They tell many stories, primarily his own, and at the same time speak of the history of the medium. As technology evolves, and, with it, new possibilities, Jan Peters is more and more interested in the past. He revisits childhood experiences and, from a piece of painted wall, evokes an entire social history of the handling of difficult children in the Federal Republic of Germany. In his journal films “November, 1-30” (1998) and “December, 1-31” (1999), Jan Peters had already tested the method of structured self-picturization, thereby finding a limbo between disarming sincerity and sovereign (under-) staging. The figure in the background is “the grand Master Hans Lucas” aka Jean-Luc Godard, who ascribed a content of truth to the cinematic image, twenty-four times a second, including the pauses between the pictures. Jan Peters is able to encompass “the whole complex of being, the unanswered questions” with ease. The film is just one and a half hours long. Video is being used as a makeshift in between. But since 2000, even Jan Peters has no longer wanted to resist digitalization. […]… >>>
“When I had no sense of the real world, it was easier to dream the future. Within the shelter of the program I was conceived, I was left with myself and under my pixel rain, I thought that time ignores me completely. Regardless my limited capacity of processing information, I understood that I will always be trapped in a screen. Have you ever felt unreal? “ Rule number one: to interact with Taietzel Ticalos’s online project, you have to prove that you are over eighteen. In these animated “confession videos”, Cherie Pie, a 3D character, tells the story of her creation and about her experiences in the field of financial domination1 – a niche of dominance and submission-play where the power exchange solely takes place on the Internet in a strictly virtual, monetary interaction without actual physical contact or intimacy. Taking her voice from a free online text-to-speech service and reflecting on the fate of Samantha, the automatic sex doll, and the rise of female voices in service-oriented AI since the now-aged computer-voice Eliza, Cherie Pie floats in her own digital filter bubble of media-headlines and excerpts from chat conversations. As Cherie Pie develops her dominatrix persona and promotes her account through various social media channels, fetish- and BDSM-platforms, the narration highlights the fluidity between real and unreal. Cherie Pie’s – or “Queen of Cups”, as is her dominatrix name – special thrill to her “Human ATM” slaves is that she is not even “real” – she is the Inhuman Mistress, worshipped by her human clients as a foot goddess whose virtual existence is worth more than their real one. At the same time, she has to acknowledge that being a 3D goddess is more difficult than being a human dominatrix. Domains must be paid and the rendering of her performance as a virtual phantasy, without the possibility of web cam sessions, is high maintenance. And in a field as saturated as online domination, too many contacts turn out to be “time wasters” – in the end, the 3D financial domination project doesn’t pay off in terms of the desired bitcoins. Conceived as a cumulative research and online performing study that captures the findom community through a semi-fictional narration told by a 3D female character, the project offers glimpses into her relationships with online clients, but also into the sex work community she encounters. In the course of its development, the online experiment also gained other focuses, such as the gender (pay) gap, the evolution of fetishes, online sex work platforms and the role of technology. Eva Scharrer 1) Financial domination (also known as money slavery) is a fetish lifestyle, in particular a practice of dominance and submission, where typically a submissive or money slave, finsub, pay pig, human ATM, or cash piggie will give gifts and money to a financial dominant (also known as money mistress, findomme, money domme, “cash master”, “findom”). The relation may often be accompanied by other practices of BDSM and master/slave relationships, like erotic humiliation, but there may be virtually no further intimacy between the individuals. The relationship between the “slave” and the “mistress” (or “master”) may take place solely via online communication […]” Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_domination… >>>
On first encounter with FLEXIBLE ERWARTUNGSAUFFÄLLIGKEIT [flexible conspicuousness of expectation], a particular fascination sets in for the discarded machine, which is seemingly past its peak and which we might recognize from the industrial past it has long since transcended. Whatever had once been transported on its chain carousel remains a secret. Catharina Szonn has uprooted it from its functional context, montaged it freestanding in the exhibition space and refurbished it with set pieces from our material present: all sorts of everyday plastic objects and strange, limblike figures perpetually pull, grind and tear each other apart. Furthermore, the machine has been expanded with several paper shredders and LED conveyor belts that eat up and spit out reoccurring text fragments from endless paper rolls. The machine itself still functions impeccably. But, as it revolves around itself and mercilessly grinds away, the viewer’s initial fascination becomes a painful feeling of utter uselessness and unfulfilled-ness. It remains tempting to consider the machine an analogy for our societal work and production relations – as something opposing humanness, something surmountable and exterior to it. But regardless of whether we understand ourselves to be in a post-industrial or a post-digital context, and regardless of whether we view ourselves as machine-human or human-machine, we are inseparably linked to our tools and materials which challenge us and shape our reality. And thus, I only recognize myself in this sad gestalt. It is life itself. All the things we carry around and within ourselves, that we drag along in our eternal cycle, that we gorge and spit out again, and that fall off of us again. Our motor, our literal inner drive, which leads us back and forth to roll over this world, to wage wars, to produce purpose. No matter where this great tugging may lead us, in the end we fray, we wear off, and will only have been. Actually, I just want to take it into my arms and console it. If I wasn’t in danger of being swept away by it. Life stays a laborious idiocy, in which we all continuously and vainly circulate. Whatever it is, this moving life, it stays unfulfilled. Don Quijote par excellence.… >>>
WHOSE LANGUAGE YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND is a cinematic exploration of the work of Austrian writer Marianne Fritz (1948–2007), and at the same time an exploration of linguistic and narrative boundaries. Fritz spent most of her life working on a major literary project – a complex cycle of novels of more than 10,000 pages, which she called “The Fortress”, and which remained unfinished at her death. During a stay in Vienna, the Canadian artist Kim Kielhofner gained access to Fritz’s apartment and archive and thus insight into the way in which the world of the “fortress” was mapped and arranged by the writer. Fascinated by the visual quality of the reference systems developed by Fritz, the layered maps and color-coded filing system – her “second memory” according to Fritz – filled with notes, photographs and index cards, Kielhofner uses this organizational information as a starting point for her own visual investigations. Based on the twelve volumes of Fritz’s 3,392-page work “Whose Language You Don’t Understand”, each one of the twelve members of a team tell in turn from personal perspective about working on a mysterious project. The narrations are accompanied by collages of various Hollywood characters and recurring film footage of landscapes and places. In addition, there are recordings of the Fritz archive, showing its classification systems and individual objects. In reenactments and revivals Kielhofner approaches the formation of these systems and the decoding of their meanings. Through constantly changing duplications and superimpositions of the cinematic material, Kielhofner presents her engagement with Fritz’s work in a staging that reflects its idiosyncratic grammatical structures and systems while, at the same time bringing her own (artist) persona into play as an agent. Objects, places, and characters become insignia and witnesses in a complex universe. Three video loops serve as an introduction to this world, substituting for the accompanying guide “Was soll man da machen.” [What do you do there.] that Fritz published after completing work on “Whose language you do not understand”. It contains a compilation of character descriptions, which are here subscripted by a series of video portraits. Thus, WHOSE LANGUAGE YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND can be experienced as an introduction, a new interpretation as well as a homage to Marianne Fritz’s exuberant opus.… >>>