Author: Chiara Giardi

Online screening curated for the Inter Media Art Institute (IMAI) Foundation, Düsseldorf, Germany with Caroline Glock, Evita Verbrugge, Heiko Schmid, and Ugo Pecoraio.

Curatorial statement

When we immerse ourselves in digital worlds, we count on their seamless functioning. The website will load instantly, and the video call won’t lag … but that’s not always the case. By disrupting their flow, distortions produce alternative spaces and modes of understanding. The errors, malfunctions, and disruptions that lead to irritation in our everyday lives—mostly just annoying, but sometimes surprising—are also called glitches.

A glitch can be intentional or occasional. It celebrates the inefficient, the irrational, and the annoying disruption. It often shows illusionistic traits reminiscent of phantasmagoria, a term borrowed from stage magic and the history of technology. Therefore, it has been employed by a variety of artists as an aesthetic and conceptual tool. We argue that some video artists use glitching as an emancipatory strategy that enables a deeper critique of technology. We argue that phantasmagoric video glitches reveal hidden (power) structures within technology, media, and politics that reach beyond their technological mechanics. 

The works we selected for this screening question the boundary between malfunction and manipulation. Where does illusion collide with dysfunction? What if we lived in a phantasmagoric reality and could only dream of glitches that help us escape to what’s beyond the illusion?

Text: Caroline Glock, Chiara Giardi, Evita Verbrugge, Heiko Schmid and Ugo Pecoraio

Programme

Steina and Woody Vasulka, Noisefields, 1974, 10:52 min.
Franziska Megert, Sweet Dressing, 1983, 03:26 min.
Paul Garrin, Free Society, 1988, 4:03 min.
Raphael Montañez Ortíz, Busy Bodies, 1997, 8:57 min.
Ulrike Rosenbach, Das Feenband, 1983, 15:17 min.
George Barber, Effervescence, 1995, 1:31 min.
Norbert Meissner with Mike Krebs, Dialog, 1987, 4:45 min.

Solo exhibition by multimedia and NFT artist Sonja Lackner
Curated by Chiara Giardi
15–17th October 2020
Kabinett Visarte (Schoeffelgasse 10, Zurich, Switzerland)

Curatorial statement

“The white father told us: I think, therefore I am. The Black mother within each of us – the poet – whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free.”

(Audre Lorde, Poetry is not a Luxury, 1985)

Close-ups of organic forms into abstract lines, a fluffy feather labyrinth, and breaking spheroid-waves. Sonja Lackner’s work is a journey into the sublime of inner places, into the depths of female power and awe. Where to start a sensual voyage if not from the body, the original and closest, the most intimate and alienating of spaces?

With the scientific eye of a chemist, the artist scrutinizes the body as the object and subject of her research. Yet, she doesn’t rationalize its poetry, its secretive, unpredictable power.

She focuses on the sensuality of touch, on the immediacy of skin against skin, as well as on the multifaceted emotions which arise during this playful expedition. Her bright, deep, and carnal palette conveys a red mystery: ‘Who dares to enter?’. Lackner pushes us, viewers, into an uncomfortable position by laying bare an obscure intimacy. We want to understand, to neutralize the mix of voyeurism and visceral curiosity that simultaneously attracts and scares us away. But the tension won’t be released, so let it bewitch you.

Muse Gesucht (Open to a Muse) – 15th-17th October 2020 – is Sonja Lackner’s first solo exhibition. Embedded in the Frisch series by Visarte Zurich at Schoffelgasse 10, it brings together a selection of recent works (2019-2020) on different media: photography, video, and installation. Each visitor brings his/her own story and character and can step into the position of a Muse during the Polaroid live events. Curiosity and playfulness are the key to this unique experience and will intensively influence the content of the new Polaroid series.

After a master’s degree in Chemistry (2010), Sonja Lackner (b. 1983, Kufstein/Austria) studied at the F&F School of Arts and Design and the Zurich University of the Arts. She currently lives and works in Thalwil/Zurich. Her work has been featured at “Kunsthalle Zurich” (2020, CH), “Photo Schweiz” in Zurich (2020, CH), “ARTBOX.SCREEN” at ARTBOX Gallery Zurich (2019, CH), “Walk of Art” during Swiss Art Expo at central station Zurich (2019, CH), “A touch of” at Estudio Nomada in Barcelona (2019, ESP) and “Young Blood 3” at Gallery Macelleria d`Arte in Saint Gallen (2018, CH). In the winter of 2019, the artist joined “Estudio Nomada” during her residency in Barcelona followed by a residency in Iran.