could It be that we appreciate the 90s. They were turning from the beginning, in the shadow of the Millennium, this magic 2000 number, you zuliefen inevitably and so many hopes and Fears to the band.
all of the, what we call today eyes rubbing our crazy reality adopted, especially in the Nineties Form. The time was a field of experimentation in the 21st century. Century, the world grew together, the first streams of data were going by a still poorly-equipped network, the East-derived capitalism, and the West was the new, no wall omnipotence limited imagination. There’s a lot that seemed even vaguely possible, as you should remember, that the Foundation of the future world order of some of the wild and resolute was already cast at that time in cement?
a Networked age
a quarter of A century later, there is a growing interest in the past smoked decade. Two exhibitions at the Zurich art centre of the Löwenbräu deal with approaches from this time. The Kunsthalle is reminiscent of the artistic activity of the “brotherhood of the new wood-heads”, a group of artists in St. Petersburg, asked in 1996 to 2002, with hits, and poetic actions, the development behind, which was their country since the change of system. The Migros Museum reviewed the postulates of the so-called cyber feminist Manifesto, which was formulated in 1991 by the Australian artists group, the Venus of the Matrix (the group was from 1991 to 1997).
Both of the exhibitions may have at first glance little in common. What is the Russian art fools can with a penchant for programmatic term-Stutz have to do with the Pioneers of the computer-based Queer-feminism, which, with flags flying, in the new disembodied reality of the networked age collapse? Just because the two exhibitions are now in Zurich in proximity to each other, you realize: not very much. Or, at least, more than you think.
More slime and Sex
Fixed: the wood heads, such as the cyber-feminist tracks at that time to be marginal phenomena. The eight Russian Performer Vadim Flyagin around knew outside of St. Petersburg, not even people in your own country. The from artists, philosophers and writers group (with Inga Nagel was a woman, she was married to the “wooden head” Sergei Spirichin) organized their actions with an almost nihilistic Nonchalance: without an audience, without a Budget and without a propere documentation.
The cyber-feminist movement that took place in Australia was, however, for the time, so radical that you had to push most of the people in front of the head. The Manifesto was a mulitmediales project by multiple artists (not a man), the new technologies as a way to saw the Patriarchal norms. The Fax, Billboard, and Flyer to spread the factory was a typical child of the early network culture: collaborative, eclectic, drug blessed and pornographic. “We are the future cunt”, “we are the future cunt”, announced the women’s group Josephine Starrs and called for more mucus and Sex in the sterile world of the computer.
New eyes
Only now, in retrospect, reveal both groups, their importance, and clearly goes beyond the Anecdotal. One of the first actions of the “wood-heads”, it was “Bring you own”. In the process, they were connected to the participants of the eyes and painted them with ink new eyes on the bandage. The action referred to a quote by the philosopher Heidegger, who insisted that everyone should be thinking process so thoroughly, as if you would learn how to Think from scratch.
Independently learn to see, and what one sees, with closed eyes: From today’s point of view, one can think of no better prophylaxis against the Fake-News-mess, in which we are stuck. Manipulation behind the questions? The young non-Communist Russian state went the other way, as we know, Instead of to schools of thought this led to Troll factories.
Profound skepticism
Complex the thing with the cyber feminism behaves, because his radical postulates have been fulfilled in part, on a peculiarly twisted way. In fact, the technology contributed to the acceleration of the social role of liquefaction, gender, and sexual orientation are now seen openly as a “social construct”, as formulated by the American philosopher Judith Butler in 1990, in her “gender trouble”,. Characters such as the ESC-winner Conchita Wurst today, even Mainstream.
have changed power structures that wanted to get rid of the cyber feminism, and the reality shows daily. The new Identity comes as a counter-reaction, and economically, too, the Internet-inherent in The-Winner-Takes-It-All mechanism new, even more drastic injustices. This circumstance by Heike Munder, in the Migros Museum, curated the exhibition also takes into account the pattern to be valid, by showing the today’s post-cyber-feminist positions of artists such as the Chinese, Cao Fei, or the Swede, Anna Uddenberg. Feminist technology-enthusiasm has made you a profound scepticism of space.
No passivity!
The technological development is far from a stabilization phase: This gives two exhibitions are even more relevant. Algorithmically driven and self-learning machines will strengthen the tendencies that are already entered in the network are evident, and continue to accelerate.
It is worth, in the threshold of perceived historical Moment to pause and analyze the artistic and researched positions. It can be seen that the impotence does not have to lead the technological development, opposite to passivity. You can, as the “wood-heads”, to cultivate in a self-induced “ignorance” and small human Gestures. Or, as the cyber-feminists, with machine towers entrepreneurial Impetus of the means of production in the future, take and use what appears to be a socially constructive.
The brotherhood of the New wood heads, Kunsthalle, Zürich,up to 26.5. Producing Futures – an Exhibition on Post-cyber feminisms,Migros Museum, to 12.5. (editor-in-Tamedia)
Created: 25.02.2019, 20:56 PM
