The Next Layer blogs

The Broken Mirror - Art after the dreamworld of digital utopia

Armin Medosch — Mon, 26 May 2014 06:47:37 +0000

Starting from the premise that the financial crisis of 2008 made only visible a deeper, structural crisis of information society, the exhibition Fields was conceived as a survey into possibilities of renewal through art. Art used to be understood as a mirror of society. Then, in the twentieth century, media became the preferred mirror of mass society. At the end of the 20th century, information superseded the media and was supposed to become the perfect mirror - the dreamworld of digital utopia. But this mirror is broken, as virtuality and the real have collapsed into an 'integral reality' (Baudrillard). Reality has lost its shadow, its capacity to dream, its underbelly of radical alternatives. As the world is urgently in need of a new social imaginary, the exhibition Fields is an articulation of that search. Fields is about an epistemic shift from subject-object relations within traditional, hierarchical ontologies towards new, networked, horizontal connections. While this slow, glacial transformation happens anyway with a degree of inevitability, we cannot awaken from the dreamworld of digital utopia soon enough. What can an art after information be like? How can we articulate artistic imaginations of a new society? How can we talk about it, categorise and develop such a vision as a more long term, infrastructural goal?

Fields Exhibition Setup

Armin Medosch — Wed, 14 May 2014 07:57:57 +0000

Some Video impressions from the setup, done by a young videoartist called auto-awesome.

Fields Exhibition Setup from Armin Medosch on Vimeo.

And the coolest Scientist of the Year is .... Luc Steels

admin — Wed, 16 Apr 2014 08:15:44 +0000

And the award for coolest scientist of the year goes to .... Luc Steels. The author of the Talking Heads Experiment played a gig with cover versions of the Talking Heads, Vienna April 15, on the occasion of the conference of evolutionary linguists ... and, ah, by the way, who said evolutionary linguists can't dance. Watch this video via Google Plus. Have to apologize for the poor sound quality, which is due to the Asus Google Nexus being unable to cope with live gig loudness. The poor filming is entirely my own fault ;-)

Press Release: FIELDS exhibition

Armin Medosch — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 08:49:59 +0000

The exhibition "Fields - patterns of social, scientific, and technological transformations" will open on May 15th at Arsenals Exhibition Hall of the Latvian National Museum of Art. FIELDS, jointly curated by Rasa Smite, Raitis Smits and Armin Medosch will show work by app. 40 artists and is part of Riga 2014, European Capital of Culture. You find the full announcement and press release below.

Die Zukunft im Rückspiegel - von der Geschichtlichkeit der Kunst mit (neuen) Medien

Armin Medosch — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 14:39:19 +0000

Braucht Medienkunst eine Geschichte? Ausgehend von der Konferenz Media Art Histories, Riga 2013, und einer Reihe von Interviews für die Sendung "Braucht Medienkunst eine Geschichte?", ORF Ö1, Radiokolleg, 27.-30.Januar 2014, wirft dieser Artikel einen inter-subjektiven und polyphonen Blick auf die Geschichtlichkeit von Kunst und Medien.

Technopolitics in a Nutshell: Commented Reading List on Key Categories

Armin Medosch — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 09:58:38 +0000

This article presents in overview form some of the key categories of Technopolitics together with essential reading. Technopolitics is a project that has began as a collaboration between Brian Holmes and me on these pages in 2010. Since 2011 a Technopolitics working group exists in Vienna. There is a lot of additional material which you can find spread out over Thenextlayer, so I thought for newcomers its time to collect a few basic references.

Radiokolleg - Braucht Medienkunst eine Geschichte?

admin — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 09:09:56 +0000

In dieser Sendung folgt Armin Medosch den Windungen der Doppelhelix aus Geschichten der Medienkunst und der Geschichte der Medien im sozialhistorischen Kontext.

A Canadian Story - Railways, Telephones, Satellites, an Interview with Robert Adrian X

Armin Medosch — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 14:53:45 +0000

Robert Adrian X is one of the true pioneers of art as telecommunications. This file presents just a few random samples from an interview with him about the need for a history of media art. Bob mixes his thoughts about the meaning of communications with his memoirs about working those technologies from the late 1970s onwards. The beginnings were characterised by the specifically Canadian situation, a vast country that needed telecommunications to keep its ends together.

Contradictions of a Tiger Cub, Part I

Armin Medosch — Sun, 12 Jan 2014 10:51:32 +0000

Video sequence taken during recent Vietnam trip. What strikes me is the contradicition between Vietnam's apparent dynamism, allegedly having joined the club of fast growing economies as a 'tiger cub' - in reference to the other Asian 'tiger economies' such as Taiwan, South Korea or Thailand - while at the same time this catching up modernisation process starts from a very low level.

Check out this river view of a village between Can Tho and Cai Be, in the Mekong delta.

(Lecture) NEW TENDENCIES (1961-1973) - PROGRAMMED ART AS FUTURE GENERATOR

admin — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 08:23:11 +0000

In a two stop lecture tour I will be talking about New Tendencies in Zagreb on December 6th and in Ljubljana on December 7th. Here I share the abstract for the Ljubljana talk and links to the event websites.