Digital Dynamics – Nýjar birtingarmyndir listarinnar

by artzine | Laugardagur.06.2020 | Umfjöllun

Digital Dynamics – Nýjar birtingarmyndir listarinnar

Sýningin Digital Dynamics – Nýjar birtingarmyndir listarinnar er haldin í tilefni að kynningu og útkomu bókarinnar Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art, sem ritstýrt er af Tanya Toft Ag og gefin út af forlaginu Intellect Books. Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir er höfundur kaflans „Visions and Divides in Icelandic Contemporarty Art“, en hún er jafnframt sýningarstjóri Nýrra birtingarmynda listarinnar. Sýningin og pallborðsumræður um sama efni, ber að líta á sem framhald af umfjöllunarefni kafla bókarinnar.

Á undanförnum áratugum hafa tölvur, forrit, stafrænar myndavélar fyrir ljósmyndir og hreyfimyndir, ásamt Internetinu breytt því hvernig listamenn skapa og setja fram verk sín. Á allra síðustu árum hafa samfélagsmiðlar opnað nýjan vettvang fyrir sýningu verka og víðtækari dreifingu en frumkvöðlar netlistarinnar gat nokkurntíma dreymt um. Kynslóðir listamanna sem hafa alist upp með lyklaborð og leikjatölvur sem framlengingu af fingurgómunum, líta á sýndarveruleikann sem eðlilegt framhald af efnislegu rými.

Þau sjá tölvuleiki, sjónræn samskiptaforrit, vettvang skyndiskilaboða og persónulegar vefsíður sem opin rými fyrir útgáfu og kynningu á verkum sínum. Internetið hefur einnig gert listasöguna samstundis aðgengilega í gegnum myndir af listaverkum frá öllum tíma, sem afmáir sögulegar tímalínur og stigveldi milli áhugafólks og atvinnumanna. Á árdaga Internetsins var litið á það sem útópískt rými sem fljótlega umbreyttist í dystópískan suðupott að því er virtist merkingarlausra upplýsinga, sjálfhverfra auglýsinga, pólítísks áróðurs, almenns eftirlits og efnahagslegra róreiðu.

Engu að síður hefur anarkískt netkerfi hins dystópíska Internets varðveitt rými fyrir frelsi einstaklings, pólitískan aktívisma og gagn-menningarleg mótmæli. Sem stafræn hraðbraut er Internetið netkerfi sem greiðir fyrir flæði kóðara upplýsinga og hluta. Sem kóði er netið tæki og tungumáli, á meðal annarra tæknilegra tóla sem eru orðin hluti af verkfærakassa listamannsins. Netið er geymsluhólf fyrir margskonar viðfangsefni, sem hafa veitt ímyndarafli listamanna samtímans innblástur, og gefið verkum þeirra merkingu á undanförnum árum.

Listamennirnir sem eiga verk á vefsýningunni Nýjar birtingarmyndir listarinnar (e. Arts New Representations) hafi allir sótt innblástur á Internetið og efnisveitur þess. Ólík frumkvöðlum netlistarinnar eru þeir ekki uppteknir af því að vefa verk sinn í netið, heldur vinna þeir með vídeó, fundnar myndir, hljóð, vísindagögn, forrit, þrívíðar hreyfimyndir og skönnun, sem hægt er að greypa inn á ólíkar vefsíður eins og gert er á þessari sýningu.

Innihald verkanna snýr að efni eins og líkamsímynd, félagslegri stöðu, óöryggi, ótta, sambandi manns og náttúru, vísindagögnum og óhlutbundnu myndmáli. Verkin eru ljóðræn, pólitísk, húmorísk og vekja til djúprar ígrundunar á sama tíma og þau fara yfir mæri og leggja til nýjar birtingarmyndir listarinnar. Þátttakendur í sýningunni Nýjar birtingarmyndir listarinnar eru Sæmundur Þór Helgason, Anna Fríða Jónsdóttir, Hákon Bragason, Ágústa Ýr Guðmundsdóttir og Haraldur Karlsson.

Samhliða sýningunni verður sýnd upptaka af pallborðsumræðum, þar sem annar hópur ungra listamanna ræðir afstöðu sína til stafrænnar tækni og áhrif hinna stafrænu og síðstafrænu tíma á eigin listsköpun. Þátttakendur í pallborðinu eru Geirþrúður Finnbogadóttir Hjörvar, Auður Lóa Guðnadóttir, Fritz Hendrik Berndsen og Freyja Eilíf.

Viðburðirnir eru styrktir af Nordic Culture Fund og Nordic Culture Point sem hluti af Digital Dynmics: New Ways of Art . Þeir eru skipulagðir í samvinnu við Artzine og Tanya Toft Ag.

Sjá nánar á vefsíðunni: digitaldynamics.art

Um listamennina sem eiga verk á sýningunni

Sæmundur Thor Helgason (f. 1986) starfar í Reykjavík, London og Amsterdam. Hann er einn af stofnendum HARD-CORE, félags sem frá árinu 2011 hefur unnið að þróun aðferðar við sýningarstjórnun sem byggir á algóritma ásamt því að reka netgalleríið Cosmos Carl. Árið 2017 stofnaði hann Félag Borgara (e. Fellowship of Citizens), sem hefur það markmarkmið að berjast fyrir borgaralaunum á Íslandi.

Hann starfar nú sem gestalistamaður hjá Rikjsakademie van Beeldende Kunsten í Amsterdam þar sem hann vinnur að verkum tengdum markmiðum Félags Borgara. Á Artzine sýnir Sæmundur Þór stiklu fyrir vídeóverkið Working Dead (2020), þar sem við sögu kemur kemur magagrófsþrýstibeltið Solar Plexus Pressure Belt™. Það er hannað af Sæmundi Thor í samstarfi við tískuhönnuðinn Agötu Mickiewicz og Gabríel Markan, sem gerði lógóið. Beltið hefur þann eiginleika að draga úr kvíða eins og þeim sem fjárhagsáhyggjur geta valdið. Vefsíða: saemundurthorhelgason.com

WORKING DEAD (2020) official trailer from Saemundur Thor Helgason on Vimeo.

Anna Fríða Jónsdóttir (f. 1984) starfar í Reykjavík og hefur sýnt verk sín bæði hér á landi og í. New York, Vín, Lichtenstein og Hong Kong. Verkið Thought Interpreter fjallar um það hvernig við skynjum áhrif frá öðru fólki og hvernig við tengjumst öðrum án þess að geta skýrt út hvernig.

Verkið stendur fyrir öll litlu skilaboðin sem við tökum við frá öðrum manneskjum í okkar daglega lífi, og hvernig við skynjum þessi skilaboð og söfnum þeim saman í eigin líkama. Verkið tengist einnig rannsóknum á því hvernig tilfinningar og merking geta haft áhrif á gerð vatnsmólekúla og hvernig við sem manneskjur tökum við og sendum frá okkur þessar tilfinningar. Anna Fríða er með BA próf í myndlist frá Listaháskóla Íslands og MA próf í List vísindum frá Universität für die Angewandte Kunst í Vín. Vefsíða: annafrida.com

Ágústa Ýr Guðmundsdóttir (f. 1994) er búsett í London og starfar þar og í New York. Hún vinnur við gerð þrívíddar hreyfimynda fyrir hljómsveitir og tískuhönnuði en gerir einnig eigin myndbönd sem hún birtir á Instagram síðu sinni undir nafninu iceicebaby. Verk Ágústu Ýr fjalla um samfélagsmiðla, sjálfsmyndir og klámvæðingu og hvernig sjálfsöryggi getur unnið gegn staðalímyndum. Ágústa Ýr tók þátt í viðburðinum Waiting for the Tsunami (The New Circus) með Alterazioni Video við opnun sýningarinnar Time, Forward í V-A-C Foundation á Feneyjartvíæringnum 2019. Hún er útskrifuð frá School of Visual Arts í New York. Vefsíða: agustayr.com

Hákon Bragason (f. 1993) starfar í Reykjavík. Hann vinnur verk sín í sýndarveruleikarými sem áhorfendur ganga inn í með þrívíddargleraugum. Hákon sýnir verkið On a Branch þar sem hann skoðar nærveru fólks innan þrívíðs netrýmis. Ekki verður hægt að eiga í venjulegum samskiptum inni í rýminu og fær fólk aðeins að vita af nærveru annarra í gegnum fjölda laufblaða sem birtast á tré í miðju rýmisins. Verkið spyr spurninga um samskipti, tengsl og samskiptaleysi. Hákon hefur verið virkur í starfi listahópsins RASK collective frá því hann útskrifaðist með BA gráðu í myndlist frá Listaháskóla Íslands vorið 2019. Vefsíða: raskcollective.com/artists/hakon.html

Haraldur Karlsson (f. 1967) er búsettur í Osló og Reykjavík. Hann hefur sérhæft sig í gerð tilraunakenndra vídExit Visual Buildereóverka á síðustu tuttugu árum. Nýjustu verk hans byggja á segulómmyndum af heila og hjarta sem hann kannar á listrænum forsendum. Haraldur hefur lengi fengist við að blanda vídeómyndir á lifandi tónleikum og í streymi. Hann ætlar að streyma beinum videósnúningi á Facebook laugardaginn 13 júní kl. 21, sem síðan verður aðgengilegur á Artzine. Haraldur stundaði nám við fjöltæknideild Myndlista- og handíðaskóla Íslands, og við vídeólistadeild AKI (Academy of Arts and Industry) í Enschede, Holland, auk þess sem hann lagði stund á hljóðfræði og skynjarafræði (sonology) við Konunglega tónlistarskólann á The Hague (The Royale Conservatoire of the Hague). Vefsíða: haraldur.net

Pallborðsumræður

Upplýsingar um þáttakendur fyrir neðan.

Geirþrúður Finnbogadóttir Hjörvar (f. 1977) býr og starfar í Reykjavík. Verk hennar fjalla um merkingu fylksins (e. matrix) frá sjónarhóli upprunlegra goðsagna og nútíma stafrænnar tækni. Fylkið ber að skilja sem hnitakerfi raunveruleikans sem einstaklingar ferðast um. Geirþrúður skoðar einnig staðfræði í innsetningum sínum og í gegnum myndefni sem hún viðar að sér úr opnum aðgangi á netinu. Hún stundaði nám við Listaháskóla Íslands, École nationale supèrieure des Beaux-Arts í París og við Konsthögskolan í Malmö.

Freyja Eilíf (f. 1986) býr og starfar í Reykjavík. Í verkum sínum framkallar hún myndir frá leiðslum inn af ólíkum vitundarsviðum og notar eigin hugbúnað sem verkfæri til að skoða ýmis óvissufræði. Hún innur verk í blandaða miðla og skapar uppsetningar staðbundið inn í hvert rými til að skapa samhljóm við þá skynjun sem hún fæst við herju sinni. Listræn rannsókn Freyju er innblásin af póst-iterneti og póst-húmanísma í listum, hugvísindum og dulvídinalegum fræðum. Freyja Eilíf útskrifaðist með BA gráðu frá Listaháskóla Íslands árið 2014. Hún stofnaði og rak Ekkisens Art Space á árunum 2014-2019 og rekur nú Museum of Perceptive Art.

Auður Lóa Guðnadóttir (f. 1993) býr og starfar í Reykjavík. Verk hennar byggja á goðsögum, bæði fornum og nýjum sem hún setur fram sem myndrænar frásagnir í litlum skúlptúr sem vísa í skrautstyttur. Myndheimur hennar er að mestu sóttur á Internetið sem hún notar sem uppsprettu verka sinna. Auður Lóa er með BA gráðu frá Listaháskóla Íslands og hefur verið virk í íslensku listalífi undanfarin. Hún hlaut Hvatningarverðlaun Myndlistarráðs árið 2018.

Fritz Hendrik Berndsen eða Fritz Hendrik IV (f. 1993) býr og starfar í Reykjavík. Hann hefur áhuga á bæði meðvituðum og ómeðvituðum sviðsetningum í lífi, list og menningu. Í verkum sínum kannar hann þessi viðfangsefni í gegnum ólíkar skáldaðar frásagnir, t.d. í samstarfi við ímyndaða Fræðimanninn (e. The Scholar) sem er sérfræðingur í að horfa á heiminn í gegnum „Gráu slæðuna“ eins og hann kallar það, um leið og hann afhjúpar gráar og ljóðrænar hliðar lífsins. Verk Fritz Hendriks eru innsetningar, málverk, skúlptúrar, ljósmyndir og vídeó. Hann er með BA gráðu frá Listaháskóla Íslands, og starfaði í átta mánuði hjá Studio Egill Sæbjörnsson í Berlín fyrir Feneyjartvíæringinn 2017.

Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir sýningarstjóri

Aðalmynd/video með frétt er eftir Ágústu Ýr Guðmundsdóttur

Digital Dynamics – Arts New Representations

by artzine | Laugardagur.06.2020 | artzine in english

Digital Dynamics – Arts New Representations

The exhibition Arts New Representations opens on Saturday June 13^th at 14:00 on the website of the online magazine Artzine (https://www.artzine.is). The exhibition is part of the presentation and publication of Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art, edited by Tanya Toft Ag and published by Intellect Books. Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir, the author of the chapter “Visions and Divides in Icelandic Contemporary Art”, is the curator of the exhibition. The exhibition and a panel on the same subject will follow up on the discussion of the book.

In recent decades computers, software, digital cameras for still and moving images and the Internet have transformed the way artists create and represent their work. More recently social media have offered platforms for representation, and a wide dissemination of art that early pioneers of net art could only dream of. Generations of artists that grew up with computer keyboards and game consoles on their fingertips, perceive the cyberspace as a natural extension of their physical spaces.

They see computer games, visual communication platforms, instant messengers’ platforms and personal web sites as an open space for instant self-publishing and promotion. On the other hand, the Internet has made art history immediately accessible through images of art works from across the ages’ that blurs historical timelines and hierarchies between amateurs and professionals. In its early days, the Internet was a utopic space soon to be transformed into a dystopic melting pot of meaningless information, narcist self-promotion, political propaganda, general surveillance, and economic chaos.

However, as an anarchic network the Internet dystopia has kept a space for individual emancipation, political activism and counter-cultural protests. As a digital superhighway the Internet is a network facilitating the flow of coded information and objects. As a code it is a tool and a language, among other digital technological tools which have become part of the artists’ toolbox. As a vast bank of subject material, the Internet has inspired the imaginary of contemporary artists and arts’ content in recent years.

The artists represented in the online exhibition Arts New Representations have all been inspired by the Internet and its broad contents in some way or other. They are not like the early net artists eager to weave their work into the net itself, but work with video, found images, sound, scientific data, software tools, 3D animation and scanning that can be woven into online platforms. Content wise their work touches on subjects such as body image, social status, insecurity, anxiety, human-nature connections, scientific data and abstract imaginary. Their works are poetic, political, humorous and deeply thought provoking as they transgress boundaries and propose new artistic representations.

The artists participating in the exhibition Arts New Representations are Sæmundur Þór Helgason, Anna Fríða Jónsdóttir, Hákon Bragason, Ágústa Ýr Guðmundsdóttir og Haraldur Karlsson.

Parallel to the exhibition a panel of young artists will discuss their position on digital technology and the impact of the digital and post-digital on their own art practice and on Icelandic contemporary art. The participants in the panel are Geirþrúður Finnbogadóttir Hjörvar, Auður Lóa Guðnadóttir, Fritz Hendrik Berndsen og Freyja Eilíf.

This program is supported by Nordic Culture Fund and the Nordic Council of Ministers as part of Digital Dynamics: New Ways of Art. It is organized in collaboration with Artzine and Tanya Toft Ag.

See further information: digitaldynamics.art

The Participating Artists

Sæmundur Thor Helgason (f. 1986) Website: saemundurthorhelgason.com/

WORKING DEAD (2020) official trailer from Saemundur Thor Helgason on Vimeo.

Anna Fríða Jónsdóttir (f. 1984) Website: annafrida.com

Ágústa Ýr Guðmundsdóttir (f. 1994) Website: : agustayr.com

Hákon Bragason (f. 1993) Website: : raskcollective.com/artists/hakon.html

Haraldur Karlsson (f. 1967) Website: haraldur.net

Streaming starts at 9 PM 13. June 2020.

Digital Dynamics – Arts New Representations from Margret E. Olafsdottir on Vimeo.

Panel Discussion

Participants:

Geirþrúður Finnbogadóttir Hjörvar (f. 1977)

Freyja Eilíf (f. 1986)

Auður Lóa Guðnadóttir (f. 1993)

Fritz Hendrik Berndsen / Fritz Hendrik IV

Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir Curator

Featured Image/video: By Ágústa Ýr Guðmundsdóttir

Dreaming While Curating Mild Humidity – The (Digital) Age of Aquarius / Litils Háttar Væta – Stafræn öld vatnsberans

by Erin Honeycutt | Laugardagur.09.2019 | artzine in english

Dreaming While Curating Mild Humidity – The (Digital) Age of Aquarius / Litils Háttar Væta – Stafræn öld vatnsberans

The digital world is a dream world of a sort. We are online in virtual reality not geographically locatable yet still encased in a persona as an extension of our offline selves. The body is often seen as a container for the mind. When Donna Haraway expressed the idea of the cyborg as a hybrid entity between human and technology and/or information networks, she shifted away from the idea of the human being as the sole bearer of consciousness.

Where does our dreaming body end and virtual reality begin?

It is not unusual to closely connect the art world and dreamworld, especially as artworks have an ability to connect many disparate layers of reality on a personal and social level. However, art essentially is at a distance from reality, which may possibly make it more easy to heighten certain fictive aspects of reality.

Geirþrúður Finnbógadóttir Hjörvar, Real Estate #2, 2019. Photo by Gústav Geir Bóllason.

Two artists, Geirþrúður Finnbógadóttir Hjörvar and Bryndís Hrönn Ragnarsdóttir, approached me with an exhibition proposal based on fluid networks of the internet, esotericism, and poetic conceptualism under the title Mild Humidity – The (Digital) Age of Aquarius. Based on the model of a horizontal network (also fluid) without hegemony, the artists chose the curator rather than the curator choosing the artists. I was intrigued.

I had first been exposed to the idea of the Age of Aquarius when I was younger in books about the Mayan Calendar by Jose Arguelles, for example. The Mexican archaeologist writes about how the Mayan Calendar aligns with the ages of the Western Zodiac, marking shifts in epochs of humanity from the perspective of both cultures. There is also the prevalent idea that the Age of Aquarius is one in which humanity will be able to manipulate their own dreams as one would in a lucid dream, waking up to the fact that reality is a sort of waking dream state. Perhaps the Age of Aquarius brings with it an ability to sense inner states such as the dream state as fluidly as we navigate virtual realities.

Exhibition view, Geirþrúður Finnbógadóttir Hjörvar, Real Estate #2, 2019. Photo by Gústav Geir Bóllason.

In this sense, the dream I had while curating the exhibition in a former herring factory transformed into an exhibition space on the North coast of Iceland, Verksmiðjan á Hjalteyri, is worth mentioning as information about the exhibition that is not critique, review, nor part of the exhibition text, but more of a side note from the curatorial journal. The former herring factory still holds traces of its former life in the upper floors where the herring (considered the blood of the nation as it was the main economic support for decades and actually has red blood) was taken by conveyor belt from the boats and processed. The strong presence of the exhibition space’s former incarnation added to a feeling of the exhibition taking place inside a living entity that operated with its own particular logic.

In Pétur Már Gunnarson’s iPad (2019), an ink print of a scanned image picks up the smudges of the users’ fingers tracing the everyday operation of the device. The outlines mark the importance of the fingers (also known as digits) in operating digital environments. When the device is on it is literally the world in your hand. When off, it becomes a black mirror with traces of your bodily presence. The question of depth in relation to the internet is brought to attention as the image is reminiscent of photos taken from outer space.

The Age of Aquarius brings with it many disparate connotations. Chief among them is an association with an era always on the brink of arriving. The actual dates of its arrival are contested, as are definitive statements on what will happen once it arrives, or what it means now that we are possibly living in the Age of Aquarius. While not being strictly part of astronomy, the Age of Aquarius is part of an astrological age occurring because of the cycle of precessions of the equinoxes. Each cycle lasts 25,800 years, equivalent to the passing of the 12 constellations of the Zodiac. About every 2,150 years, the sun moves towards the sign of a new zodiac constellation. The Age of Aquarius, therefore, begins when the Spring Equinox moves from the constellation of Pisces into the constellation of Aquarius. The dates for when this occurs/will occur varies from 1447 to 3597 AD.

The idea is that each astrological age affects humanity, therefore influencing cultural tendencies. With Aquarius being associated with electricity, cybernetics, democracy, humanitarianism, modernization, rebellion, and science fiction, it is thought by many astrologers that the 20^th century is a likely time for the arrival of the Age of Aquarius or at least a precursor. In Mild Humidity – The (Digital) Age of Aquarius, the aesthetic of this ever-elusive tomorrow is embraced by using water as a metaphor for the subconscious. The digital logic of contemporaneity is built on the fluidity of information, the same fluidity that guides the subconscious. In this way, telepathy and the open narrative systems of the internet are the key components to a hive mentality of networks that usher in a new era.

After a conversation with one of the artists who wrote the proposal, Geirþrúður Finnbógadóttir Hjörvar, elements of her sculptural installations, as she told me about her process in creating them, weaved their way into a dream sequence after a few days of my researching the topics at hand. In some ways the dream sequence allowed me to visually and mentally comprehend the overlapping of contexts that the artist was intending to realize in her artworks, Glass Matrix and Real Estate #2, in a dream logic before actualizing them in the space of the exhibition. Because of the nature of the subject matter of the artist’s inquiry, this seemed especially fitting.

Pura Sangre, Film Poster. Source: Senalcolombia.tv

Pura Sangre, or Pure Blood, by Luis Ospina, is a film that is seen as a key work of Tropical Goth cinema that marks a development in the work of Grupo de Cali filmmakers in a shift from documentary work to narrative feature films. Pura Sangre is a satire on Colombian landowners and the vampirism of Latin American capitalism, inspired by a story from Ospina’s youth, an urban legend about a vampiric figure who preyed on the blood of young men. In the film, this vampiric figure is a bedridden sugar tycoon who communicates with the outside world via closed-circuit Television while being kept alive by blood transfusions.

In Geirþruður’s Real Estate #2, black and white photographs of real estate advertisements and real estate agencies taken by the artist in Cali, Colombia have been pasted on MDF board at specific mirrored angles to create a self-supporting structure. The artist explores one definition of a matrix as being a mathematical structure while also alluding to its topology which can be considered as space on a grid. The artist plays with the idea of an ´X´ and ´Y’ axis as indexes for Cartesian space that determine our perception of reality by placing a board at an intersection, therefore, becoming an axis. The physical action of constructing a building is made transparent in the work. Pasted on top of the matrix she has built is the concept of private property in real estate. The black and white photography alludes to the real estate enterprise while harking to the genre of Tropical Goth and the link between political parables and vampiric tales of power relations.

For Glass Matrix, the artist told me about her plan to use a screenshot from a digitized reproduction of the classic painting The Ghent Altarpiece (The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb), dating to 1482, the most famous work by the Dutch Van Eyck brothers. I then read an article about recent discoveries on the painting revealing drastic differences in the overpaint vs the original layers. And, after watching Pura Sangre, I dreamed that the opening sequence of technicians preparing the decrepit sugar tycoon for his blood transfusions were the same technicians analyzing the overpaint on the painting.

Jan van Eyck, The Ghent Altarpiece (all 12 panels), 1432, oil on panel, 461 x 350 cm

In Geirþrúður’s sculptural installation, Glass Matrix, the artist continues to explore the meaning of a matrix from the perspective of origin myths as well as that of modern-day information technology, in this case, the digitization of paintings. The topology of space is examined as it occurs at these intersections. The artist uses a standard retail fitting made for display in shop windows, with its grid-like shape, as a matrix itself – one could say it is the matrix of techno-capitalism in which we are all embedded, and in which the idea of private property holds precedence. Intersecting the glass grid is a foam plane on which is pasted a screenshot of an open web browser of a digitization of a detail of The Ghent Altarpiece, an unidentifiable scan of Eve’s womb.

Geirþrúður Finnbógadóttir Hjörvar, Real Estate #2, 2019. Photo by Gústav Geir Bóllason.

In the dream, I approached the glass retail display case, as described to me by Geirþrúður in real life, expecting to find real estate brochures in black and white, the only kind that had been printed in the last thirty years. Unceremoniously, all real estate images had been turned into black and white images as though the geographical point at which they existed had become taken out of what could be considered a fully human experience with all the color in the living flesh that living not in the context of dust can bring. In the dream logic, one lived in a reality of flesh-colored hues when living outside the context of dust. Living outside of the context of this dust (likely, a dream texture referencing cocaine) meant living in an empire not fueled by the zombified desires and inflated infatuations of a dust taken so far from its plant source that it has been stripped of any earthly matrices.

The ones who furnish the masses with the dust turn into vampires by their repeated cutting through a plastic commotion until the dust has soaked all of their blood, and slowly all their blood is replaced by a colorless space reserved for dust. This is what makes them such good real estate moguls; they reserve space for dust inside their body as a mechanism that keeps them alive. Naturally, it happens outside in the form of real estate.

Jan van Eyck, The Ghent Altarpiece (detail from central panel), 1432, oil on panel, 461 x 350 cm

In the dream, I was surprised to find that the glass real estate display case, true to the reality of the actual work, had been cut into by a blown-up image of the Van Eyck painting of a lamb within a larger matrix of works. It was as if the image of the Van Eyck painting was a knife that arrived with force to wedge itself into the glass case, causing no dishevelment to the structure of the displace case, besides the presence of this new matrix of space that created new correlations with the glass plane that divides the cubic squares of the display case in a new topology of imagined real estate brochures and the representation of the surface of this 15^th century painting under the auspices of the kind of scans available in 2019.

Geirþrúður Finnbógadóttir Hjörvar, Real Estate #2, 2019. Photo by Gústav Geir Bóllason.

The image cutting into the glass real estate was a detail of the lamb on the central panel with the area behind the lamb’s left hear blown up into a mass of grey digitized texture, arriving from a long way off in either its pixelization or its trip from the past to the present. I had read recently, in waking life, that an overpaint layer had been discovered on the lamb’s face, laughing at myself mimicking the two expressions in my own manner. Two side by side images shows the lamb in its original form with a neutral expression, indifferent, allowing the story of Christ to play itself out unhindered. What had been painted over the lamb’s face was a few marks here and there that turned the expression into one of grave concern and alarm, a direct message to viewers that they should be alarmed at the unraveling of historic events as well.

Detail of the head of the lamb before and after treatment.

The texture of information that gives a sense of realness to a matrix of space and how the textures of each matrix allow each other to exist at multifocal points began to reveal itself. It began in the same manner of the opening of Pura Sangre: Blood spattered the walls of the boarding house. Walking amongst the rooms one could find, unsurprisingly, more blood and the slain bodies it belonged to, along with roosters nonchalantly investigating the scene.

The real film sequence continued in the dream sequence. In the red light of a photosynthesis lab, a technician developed film with precision, running his fingers over the final development in search for a clue.

Still from Pura Sangre (1982). Source: Youtube

The role of the technician became parallel with a new role easily developed from that of a film lab technician: that of flossing the teeth of animals so that they could speak the same language as humans. The solo technician became one of many in a team devoted to the process of rendering this possibility. They began with the construction of a kind of marionette, an invention that made it possible for the technicians to hold the control-piece with one hand. The control-piece was attached to several looping layers of dental floss that created a canopy in which the head of four different animals could be placed.

Of course, the rooster that had been found investigating the bloody scene at the boarding house was the first one to try it out. They opened the beak of the rooster and placed the loops of dental floss inside it while with other nodes they attached to some bits of feathers for effect. The notion they were exploring was that the dental floss could activate the linguistic abilities of the rooster because of the specific texture in the floss, the tiny hint of spearmint, and the friction it created with the teeth of other species.

Alas, the rooster was silent. The floss began to untangle itself like the electricity had been turned off while the rooster flitted its head right to left and front to back, unconcerned, but curious about the trial and error.

Then came an Irish Setter, with the same results and even less curiosity involved in the process in which it had become involved in. The Irish Setter leaped down with the apparatus attached, tongue extended, tongue not giving way to any notions of speaking another language. It was a matter of teeth, that could be seen for certain.

Next came a rabbit; again, the same unconcern but willingness to participate. The teeth were a part of the whole matrix of nose and ears in a way that made the rabbit wiggle and sniff and leap away. Again, a matter of the mouth structure, the tongue, the opening and closing of the lips and teeth.

Finally, the lamb arrived, calmly and judiciously, it stood waiting to be involved with the apparatus of dental floss. The technicians and I stood around him taking notes and observing how language might erupt from such textures. What combining factors of bone, lip, saliva, tongue, and the crevices in between where the dental floss erupted could contribute to a poetic relation conducive to producing speech? The lamb licked his lips, getting a bit snagged on floss where it was wedged from his mouth to the heavens, but after a few licks and labiodental activation, the floss could be heard in its textured resonance give way to a grain of a voice, like a radio station tuning into a channel on Saturn, arriving from a long distance, ever-present yet not always revealed because of this sensitivity to textures, surface weaves and warps, the mind of Van Eyck as he applied the paint and made the texture, the blood and the coke heterogeneously built into the real estate, the real estate being a topology where all these things meet and erupt.

The blood spurting from the lamb’s heart in the painting was the same blood found in the 1982 thriller, creating an interstitial realm where the poetic imagery of blood was allowed to roam freely as dream logic. (Not to mention the blood of the herring that the exhibition space had been built for!) The technicians in the dream tested a new experiment about the origins of language in the soft palate of the mouth, a simple activation of gum pressure via dental floss. The dream technicians moved seamlessly amongst the investigations of the blood lab technicians in Pura Sangre and the technicians analyzing the overpaint in The Ghent Altarpiece in reality in the 21^st century as though they all took place in a dimension. As Geirþrúður explored the meaning of a matrix from the perspective of origin myths and modern-day information technology in her sculptural installations, the dream tried in its own way to examine the intersections of these topologies, while also situating itself in a new topology: that of the dreamworld of the curator.

Erin Honeycutt

Sources: http://www.flanderstoday.eu/van-eycks-original-lamb-uncovered-ghent-altarpiece

Thanks to Geirþrúður for edits and feedback on relaying dream logic through narrative.

About science, emotions and the Roman Empire: a conversation with Geirþrúður Finnbogadóttir Hjörvar

by Ana Victoria Bruno | Sunnudagur.03.2019 | artzine in english, Viðtöl

About science, emotions and the Roman Empire: a conversation with Geirþrúður Finnbogadóttir Hjörvar

A few weeks ago I had a chat with Geirþrúður Finnbogadóttir Hjörvar about her show Desargues’s Theorem Lecture and Three Other Sculptures at Kling og Bang. Some sculptures would welcome the visitors into the exhibition, playing on the concepts of two-dimensional and three-dimensional, real and unreal, questioning what existence means. The video work Desargues’s Theorem Lecture would then give an insight on the process the artist went through, a sort of key to read the sculptures. Geirþrúður’s mind seems to be an unresting machine which absorbs, processes and reformulates realities in an extremely mathematical and logical way. Through this conversation I tried to grasp her creative process and her understanding of art.

I would like to start this conversation by asking you to explain a little bit further the first sentence of the text in your show’s pamphlet “Desargues’s Theorem Lecture is a video that relies on the assumption that ideas have shapes.”, I find the concept of art dwelling in space between ideas and the physical world really interesting. Where does this idea come from?

At that time, and still maybe now, I was thinking about the relationship between science and alchemy, since alchemy has as forefather a scientific thought, even though this connection is really suppressed. They have a common impulse to do analytical things and to get into a state of mind which contemplates the possibility of figuring things out. I wanted to see what I could do with that, there is a kind of mysticism inherit in all sort of sciences and it is interesting to see how and if they can be brought together in a way that is useful. Everyone who goes into art or who appreciates art is aware that there is some kind of underlying relationship between forms and a more abstract sense, feelings and thoughts. It‘s a bit hard to trace where this idea came from, but at the basis of this work there is a very sincere impulse.

What do you mean by “useful”?

Well, useful as it is not about making fun of science or to try to disqualify it. Science and mysticism are intertwined and you can‘t really go further in either direction without accepting both. On one hand science is a very enclosed system, it would support itself, but on the other hand if you want to get all mystic you will probably end up joining your cult and then whatever you say becomes so enclosed that even talking to other people doesn‘t make any sense anymore. But between these two systems there is something really interesting.

I am also thinking about quantum physics which explores how something thought impossible could actually exist in other quantum realities.

Yes exactly, the further science goes the further it goes back to incredibly metaphysical understandings and statements about how nothing is real after all. And I think if you are serious and eager to discover, then you are following the same track someone in the 15th century would be following when they were making gold, which is also an allegory for knowledge. But it feels like, especially in a social sense, science is used to scare you away from wanting to know something, they say you have to know the scientific method and you probably need ten years of studies to be qualified for it. So this playfulness is not really allowed.

Your work is also quite ironic, right?

It is actually weirdly not ironic. It seems ironic because it is really sincere. The impulse is to create some kind of a narrative, a sort of suspended belief, and to see science as a narrative. If it seems ironic it is because I wanted to do that, since I‘m very ironic.

In the text you talk about the work in terms of a coded love letter, how did you weave together science and emotion?

In a way that is what I am saying in terms of that it is completely sincere, I did go through all this process that I described in the video. At a certain point I was a bit addicted at looking at all these images of certain things so I just did it more and more, and there is a point in which you exhaust certain materials visually on google and then you start to have a real eye for what brings you into a new place. I think there was something going on in that theory that I just found interesting to explore and then I just kept thinking about that and I really started making this model. On one hand it was a little bit of a joke, the theorem is completely abstract and I was making a thing out of something completely immaterial, I was completely aware that it is kind of funny to try to do that, also because I used whatever was in the kitchen. It was really playful, and I think that was also part of it, this will to take something really scientific and doing something so playful with it, so irrelevant about it. But it was part of something a little bit more concrete, I wanted to make a sculpture out of the theorem, and why did I want to do something which doesn‘t make sense? Well, in part because it didn‘t make sense, if it did make sense then it would have been so pointless. I think the reason why anyone has a passion for something remains inexplicable, and I suppose the only way to grasp it is to make this analogy with things that are part of an emotional landscape. The scientific world says that we have to separate science and emotions, but I don‘t agree with that, I think things going on in the mind can be very passionate in a very abstract way and I think passions can be extremely rational.

There is also a kind of instinctive side to discovering how things work.

Well, you know, the mind is the biggest sexual organ, they say. We use all kind of ways to seduce who or whatever we are interested in. In the background of my mind I was also thinking about the implicit masculine nature of scientific discourse, which is very much ego-based and willing to dominate, the scientist is this alpha male who seduces with his great brain. To me it was interesting to see what it feels like to take on that position.

And how did you feel in this alpha man/scientist role?

It was fun, I’m still trying to have a dialogue with that scientific part of myself, I think it is something that everyone should do. It is conditioning for a woman to think about science as a complicated thing. Wanting to shy away from technology is really common, as it is scary, but it is important to be able to take something scientific and make it yours, play with it, you don’t have to be afraid of not being qualified. And this is also part of this desire of creating this scientific discourse and being convincing, because it is just a theory.

Talking about being convincing, you state in the show’s pamphlet that the piece is very much inspired by the 20th century communication, I think the format you have decided to use for this video is really interesting. In which terms are you interested in the 20th century communication?

I think it is about being contemporary, the modern communication defines the era on every level. Concretely, it represents also an interest in science in terms of knowledge and how it is communicated. I never stop being amazed by how easy it is to have information nowadays compared to how it was before, I managed to master four different programs thanks to Youtube tutorials. I think the piece is a kind of celebration of that, I find interesting the relationship between the word and the images that we have become able to recognize, and this is completely new. It is part of mass culture: now everyone knows how to get a picture from google and put it in a powerpoint, and that produces this logic which is part of our consciousness now. On the other side, I’m interested in the narratives in these kind of media which are really competitive so within a certain amount of time you have to gain the viewer’s attention. But also, considering the social-political climate, these media are quite dangerous, the flat earth theory is the perfect example of how we just apparently got back to the middle age all thanks to precisely this kind of presentations of information. Sometimes I can just watch these videos and sincerely be a little bit scared, because I can feel critical about them, since I’m visually trained to be able to understand all these subtleties, but I wonder if all of the millions viewers who have seen the video are also trained or maybe they just believe it for what it appears. I think there is something about artistic education which is quite valuable in terms of decoding presentations of information, and it actually would be useful for people to navigate those media.

Talking about the importance of art history, I was browsing your website I noticed that there are recurring symbols of the Roman Empire, architectural elements like the Ara Pacis and the columns in Desargues’ Theorem Lecture.

I’m really fascinated by the Roman Empire because you could decode or you could foresee a lot of things about history’s unfolding by learning Roman history. You can actually understand today so much better by understanding Rome than by understanding any contemporary theory. I have also being concretely influenced by the financial crash in Iceland, I was in Europe at the time and it was a very strange sensation because at that point no one in the rest of Europe could perceive a social movement as being anything other than populist and I had really mixed feelings whilst I felt there was such a huge possibility to create something, but then again there are so many things that can go wrong if there is not an understanding of historical perspectives underlying mass movements. On one hand there is a lack of class-conscious reading of history in the general education, on the other hand those training to be part of the upper classes universally receive a classicist education which provides them with a playbook to maintain power, they just don’t have to come up with a new strategy if they know the history, it is all there, like a toolbox for countering the next move.

Your book Mindgames, published in 2012, brings together John Lennon, Henri Lefebvre, Halldor Laxness and Caligula, it looks like you are taking fragments from different areas of knowledge and mixing them together. What was your aim? And why did you choose these four subjects?

The idea was that they represent different spheres in society, it was a sort of mathematical formula which brings together the politician, the musician, the theorist and the writer, I was fascinated by this relationship they had with recognition and with their audience. It is a lot about time, repetitions and patterns. I was thinking in a cybernetic kind of way when there is a feedback and when there isn’t and how the author transmits information to the reader and that this would produce something new, a feedback which then will influence the author. These are all kind of subsystems, and I suppose I was trying to figure out my position and wondering what the contemporary artist could hope to achieve by creating new work, if artists can really influence anyone at any level, if that’s actually the aim, and how quality is created.

And did you find an answer to these questions?

Yeah, in my own kind of mathematical way, in terms of theory, I found the mathematical kind of calculations to figure out the probability, the correct proportion between the different elements you need to communicate something. I probably figured out for myself what I wanted and how I wanted to make art.

My last question does not really relate to your own work, but since you have been living abroad for about ten years, in Holland, Germany and Colombia and you had the chance to experience different art scenes, I would like to ask you what you think about the Icelandic contemporary art scene.

I think it is pretty good, you can actually see some pretty good works and shows. There are a lot of big cities where a lot of things are happening and you really have to try hard to find good exhibitions, while in Iceland the art scene is at a surprisingly good level considering its size. I think there are a lot of artists doing super interesting things. If I wanted to make a critique it would be that in the past there has been a quite strong impulse to try to suppress any kind of intellectual sensibility. But this is changing though, there is more space now, because it’s just a matter of having a wider spectrum, and I think it’s also quite valuable that there is a lot of room for people who are not into this super intellectual/critical/reading kind of discourse, while in a lot of places, for instance in Europe, you have to make sure you’ve read certain books and check out certain things to be allowed to this sphere, and that art under those conditions can be boring because that doesn’t come from an inner desire of the artists. So I think it is nice that here there is that side of the spectrum, but I think it’s also good that you can include in something more intellectual or conceptual and to try not to dismiss that, and I think that’s becoming more accepted than it was before.

Ana Victoria Bruno

Photo credits:

Stills from the video: courtesy of the artist.

Photos of the sculptures: Vigfús Birgisson.

Website of the artist: http://www.geirthrudur.com

HARD-CORE AND ASAHI 4.0 — The Future of Robotic Curating

by Geirthrudur Finnbogadottir Hjorvar | Sunnudagur.05.2017 | artzine in english

HARD-CORE AND ASAHI 4.0 — The Future of Robotic Curating

The next generation of robotic curation — ASAHI 4.0 — is projected to come out in 2017. A machine conceived by HARD-CORE, ASAHI is able to automate what used to be the human skill of curating art exhibitions. Past models of ASAHI have used the contemporary technology of randomizing algorithms to successfully organize the position of artworks within space. In so doing it has enabled the machine to free aesthetics from the many pitfalls of contemporary curation, including those of subjective choice, arbitrary protocol, and especially of taste. The exclusion of which has allowed artists to show works within a truly neutral spatial arrangement. Thereby fulfilling what the white cube of the gallery space was to have promised the artist as a condition to best enjoy art.

A word originating from Latin, the concept of curation is derived from „caring for“. It refers to the way that the curator „cares“ for projects that had been commissioned for the public good. In Roman times it would include managerial duties ranging from the construction of aqueducts, to the maintenance of libraries. Today the word has undergone a change in meaning so as to be understood less as a public servant and more as a free agent. One that implies a position of authority due to the curator’s responsibility in negotiating between the elements that form a ruling order, including the influences of popular opinion, financial capital, and the effects of political control. It is a position acquired through the curator’s perceived status as „impartial“ professional whose decisions relies exclusively on taste. Which may be responsible for a shifting power dynamic between the artist and the curator, wherein the artist’s visibility has come to rely on the curator’s capacity in negotiating between such elements.

Taste however, is now as it has been in the past, embedded in class-driven social structures. Once overtly controlled, the banal realities that now contribute to the validation of taste include the now high cost of art education, the lack of monetary return for such an investment, the leisure time necessary to consume cultural products, and perhaps most importantly — the sentimental landscape required to renounce participation in the production of tangible commodities. But all these consideration are perhaps secondary to the abstract levels implied by aesthetic choice. A level in which taste is given the illusion of being preordained rather than being the result of subjective choice. As would be the case in the example of a curator who remains in a subordinate position towards those elements with which the curator had negotiated to achieve aesthetic aims. This would, as a result of a structural logic, lead the curator to produce a visual code that may in reality reflect the values of those to whom the curator is indebted. It is process by which to validate aesthetic choice that stands in diametrical opposition to that of the artist— who may yet have subversive aims when reproducing the social norms of a ruling order. Aims at which the artist may often achieve on account of the artist’s formal ability to camouflage work as — while still acting against — a prevailing order.

In HARD-CORE’s case, their aesthetic reference in creating ASAHI has been that of product development. Indicating a certain indifference towards the working of the machine, this style aligns them with the Futurists of roughly a hundred years ago. Not being so interested in mechanics, the Futurists were preoccupied in the look and feel of the then contemporary innovation of the automobile. A sentiment reflecting the zeitgeist of technological innovation, a joy towards the newness of a product, and the pleasure evoked by corporate branding, these are elements that together hint at their complimentary underbelly of their eventual datedness. Which in capitalist logic works to accelerate their pace of redundancy.

In terms of product development, ASAHI has however evolved through, and alongside, simple analogue systems and computational processes. Circular Projection is an example of an analogue feedback loop wherein an artist gives a neighbouring colleague the power to curate the artist’s work. This colleague is then curated by a neighbour, and so forth to the next neighbour, until a closed circle is formed. Co-Re-Curation runs on the simple logic of a remix, where the same set of works are re-curated by different groups of 2 to 3 „curators“. This group is then asked to rationalize their arrangement in the form of a statement. This necessity of the statement further emphasizes a hierarchy that had been produced by inviting multiple curators to do the same thing several times. It effectively stages the competitive dynamics of demand-and-supply that has traditionally led labourers such as artists to receive ever-lower returns for the same amount of work. Then there is Toolbox nr. 1 — a webpage that provides algorithms by which to randomize the components that constitute the curation of an exhibition. Those elements include the name and opening hours of an exhibition, the wall colour, light condition and shape of the exhibition space, as well as including randomizers to decide the location and height of the artworks therein.

The problem with each of these systems is that it is still up to humans to execute the processes that they dictate, just as it had been up to them to volunteer their participation in the first place. This may explain why HARD-CORE has constructed ASAHI as a robot that is the personification of such systems. This machine continues to deal with processes by which to organize art, this time as an autonomous unit capable of curating an exhibition.

This first generation of curational robotics — ASAHI 1.0 — is a simple machine that consists of a camera mounted in the space of the exhibition. It uses randomizing algorithms to selects the camera’s position and point of depth. The artwork’s position can thereby be deciphered by following the camera’s trajectory, and in using its point of depth to determine a position from within that trajectory. In the next version of ASAHI 2.0, the camera is replaced by a laser that creates a visible trajectory in space, which allows humans to make a more accurate reading of ASAHI’s decisions. ASAHI 2.0 also has the additional feature of a randomizer that lets the robot select one from within several positions along the laser’s trajectory. ASAHI 2.1 represents yet another new step towards robotic independence. Now capable of interacting with Toolbox nr°1, it extracts data from it to decide a position in which to place itself when making its curatorial choices. The next generation of ASAHI 3.0 solves the issue of robotic autonomy differently. This third generation is a mobile unit that navigates an exhibition space on four wheels. Using the same principle of randomization, it is now capable of moving autonomously to select the location of artworks.

Each of these models is represented by sequential numbers to indicate its levels of autonomy from human intervention. They indicate new generations of technology — a concept built on biological evolution according to which, each species attains maximum potential and minimum waste by being in constant competition within its own, as well as other species. Product development therefore forms generations to the extent that it is driven to attain maximum efficiency by being in competition within their own line, as well as with other brands.

This concept of the generation changes slightly when applied to the realm of culture. It is here that art history speaks of the „progression“ of aesthetic values thanks to a series of competitive trans-generational tensions. This is a feedback mechanism where each generation competes to occupy the position of the avant-garde. Wherein the younger generation will always win on account of how each rear-guard had once been the avant-garde to those who came before. Evoking an evolutionary movement, it is informed by the psychological tension of the Oedipal drive in which the rear-guard takes the position of parent-figures who is under psychological pressure to reproduce their own ideology. All the time knowing that by doing so, they are sowing the seed of those that will eventually supplant them. Meanwhile the younger generation is under a complimentary set of tensions to soak in knowledge from their parent-figures while simultaneously aiming to outdo them. Eventually they will be forced to choose between their own mediocrity or the trauma involved in performing a symbolic murder of their father.

However, even if subliminally affected by an Oedipal tension, the common understanding of a „generation“ is far more neutral. Referring instead to a cultural unit of individuals that had been born at approximately the same time, they are defined by the moods, styles, and technology of a given era, particularly in relation to sentimental influences from their formative years. The current generation of millennials tend for example, to be defined by their relationship with technology. Not having known of a reality before the internet became prevalent, it forms the contours of what this generation understands to be reality. An example of the formal repercussions of this influence lies in the aesthetics of the post-digital, while the sentimental effects may indicate a shift towards sincerity. Built on the psychology of transparency, it is a sentiment that may be the result of overstimulation and overexposure to information in the age of the internet. In so doing, it produces a contradiction similar to the turning of a glass. First it is transparent. Then it is grey, verging on black. Eventually it will reflect the light source back towards the one who holds the glass. Likewise, the manipulation of sincerity may form its own inversion.

A case in point lies in HARD-CORE name — a cultural references that brings to mind not just pornography, but specifically hard pornography. A genre particular to competitive capitalism, it is placed higher on the hierarchy of spectator-driven exploitation for its capacity to raise the stakes of its transgression. The logic of the name therefore seems to refer to their willingness to take part in an increasing pace of self-exploitation so as to compete within the attention economy, as well as in the real economy. Yet its members propose to be oblivious to this reference when choosing HARD-CORE as their name. In a tactic that seems to be staging their own innocence, HARD-CORE’s members seem to imply that to even know the reference to pornography is to be complicit with the genre. What reason, after all, do we have for admitting to know about this fringe economy that is supposedly invincible to those not actively seeking it out?

The actual reference in HARD-CORE ‘s name is so innocent that it verges on the comical. Alluding to a graph from an elementary class in geology, HARD-CORE’s name refers the mass inside the planet’s core. This mass has a magnetic charge that works as an allegory to refer to HARD-CORE’s methodology. It describes a strategy by which HARD-CORE seeks to attract other artists by constructing the necessary autonomy that would allow multiple agents to coexist within the same, loosely defined orbit of a HARD-CORE project.

The creation of ASAHI holds this same strategic sense of innocence as had gone in constructing HARD-CORE’s name. Because the creation of an algorithm to obtain objective methods of curation may actually seem self-evident in the current mood of technological advancement. Were it not for the fact that the machine is designed to address and subvert an underlying hierarchy between curator and artist when the second is working to exclude the former. The construction of the machine thereby introduces an element of comedy derived from the apparent sincerity of intention in creating this technological advancement. It is a strategic denial of negativity in which HARD-CORE uses to take advantage of the fact that we are not supposed to openly admit to power relations that are inherent to the exhibition of art. Which is why when the curator robot appears, no one seems to be able to say anything about its subversion. Because on an official level, there had been none.

In continuing its work within the field of robotic curation, HARD-CORE has developed a model that will go further than previous generations in subverting embedded hierarchies in the field of aesthetics. No longer limiting itself to merely choosing the position of objects in the space of an exhibition, ASAHI 4.0 is capable of deciding which artist will show in which exhibition venue. It will do this by using a webpage (www.asahi4.com) to which artist and exhibitions spaces may inscribe themselves. Continuing to use its randomizing algorithms, ASAHI 4.0 uses this input to create objectively random configurations of artists, artworks and exhibition venues.

It is here where ASAHI 4.0 evokes a complex irony: In creating radically new visual ecologies that no longer rely on pre-existing conformities, ASAHI allows the audience to direct its attention more fully towards the ability of each artist’s work to compete with other objects on display. Like any game, it is the organizational structure of neutrality that reproduces these conditions of competition. But the complexity of such structures lies in how they simultaneously evoke its opposing movement by negating pre-existing hierarchies that had been the result of past competition. The charm of the project, however, doesn’t lie in the irony of this paradoxical movement between artificial equality and competitive quality. Rather it lies in the uncanny optimism of a strategy that lies in building an autonomous agent of critique. As robots don’t understand irony, HARD-CORE uses sincerity to convince the machine to go against its nature to dissuade existing hierarchies instead of supporting them.

Go to www.asahi4.com to apply.

Geirþrúður Finnbogadóttir Hjörvar

Images: courtesy of Hardcore

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