PRESS RELEASES
Press Release #1: about SOFT CONTROL, international art exhibition
September 6, 2012
INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL KIBLIX 2012, PART TWO:
SOFT CONTROL:
ART, SCIENCE AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL UNCONSCIOUS
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION > CONFERENCE > EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM > PUBLIC LECTURES > SCREENINGS
Maribor – Slovenj Gradec – SLOVENIA
November 14–December 15, 2012
Production: ACE KIBLA Maribor and KGLU Slovenj Gradec
Curator: DMITRY BULATOV (RU)
Opening of the exhibition Part I: BOTTOM-UP / KGLU, Slovenj Gradec, Slovenia, on Wednesday, November 14, at 7 pm
Opening of the exhibition Part II: TOP-DOWN / Maribor, Portal-Valvazorjeva ulica 40 on Thursday, November 15, at 7 pm
International conference: ART, SCIENCE AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL UNCONSCIOUS on Friday and Saturday, November 16 and 17, from 2 pm to 8 pm
Exhibiting artists:
Marina Abramović (RS/US) with Suzanne Dikker and Matthias Oostrik (NL) / James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau (UK) / Tuur Van Balen (BE) / Brandon Ballengee (US) / Guy Ben-Ary and Kirsten Hudson (AU) / Boredomresearch: Vicky Isley and Paul Smith (UK) / David Bowen (US) / Ursula Damm (DE) / Joe Davis (US) / Louis-Philippe Demers (SG) / Stefan Doepner and Lars Vaupel (SI/DE) / Arthur Elsenaar and Remko Scha (NL) / Andrew Gracie (UK/ES) / Floris Kaayk (NL) / Kuda begut sobaki (RU) / Seiko Mikami (JP) / Neurotica (AU-US) / Leo Peschta (AT) / Maja Smrekar (SI) / Stelarc (AU) / The Tissue Culture & Art Project: Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr (AU) / Polona Tratnik (SI) / Bill Vorn (CA).
Curator statement:
“…The SOFT CONTROL: Art, Science and the Technological Unconscious exhibition reveals to us today’s “technological unconscious”, which encompasses mythological imagination, apocalyptic visions and utopian dreams. SOFT CONTROL shows how the language and ideas of our modern post-biological society are capable of altering and reconfiguring the boundaries of our reality and our very identities. By focusing our attention on works of art created using the latest 21st century media – robotics, IT, biomedicine and nanotechnology – the artists featured in this exhibition attempt to reveal the sources of the modern technological myth, which insists on the permanent value of efficiency, control, unrestrained technological development and economic expansion.
We begin with the axiom that science and technology are not simply instruments to be used in the achieving of certain designated goals. On the contrary, the autonomy of technological systems and their active penetration into all spheres of human life allow us to conceptualize technology as an autotelic ontological entity that plays an ever-greater role in defining human development. The question arises of how one should understand the nature of control, the nature of the compulsion that forces the human to participate in the making of technological systems that, with time, will become not only inseparable from the biological organism, but, in the long term, will surpass it. Is structuring by technologies a manifestation of distinct, abstract “machinisms” that fill our unconscious, or is it a hidden “formatting” influence of the basic elements of medial carriers that possess their own materiality and reality?…” Dmitry Bulatov
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SOFT CONTROL: ART, SCIENCE AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL UNCONSCIOUS is part of the Soft Control project. The project is supported by the Culture Programme of the European Union, Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia and co-produced with Maribor 2012 – European Capital of Culture.
