Artists Statement

The Future Of Demonstration is an art series that engages with the radical changes we witness in ecological, economic and cultural spheres. Algorithmic automation informs almost every realm of life today. Our reality increasingly coincides with data-driven models that anticipate, simulate and escalate that reality. As power shifts from representational to performative speech, critical analysis turns from voicing judgment and dissent to data prognostics and real-time evaluation.
The Future Of Demonstration challenges comprehensive models of hypercompetitive simulation by probing potentials of counter-narratives. We unmake the artificial separation between art and theory in favor of “postdisciplinary” practices that combine research, production, exhibition, discourse and documentation. Together, artists, activists, scientists and other experts explore the technological, pedagogical, political and aesthetic potentials of demonstration as means to imagine, collect, manifest and share narratives, techniques and affiliations of resistance. Is such “renegade agency” an artistic device to transgress critique towards emancipatory forms of insurrection?
thefutureofdemonstration.net

• Sylvia Eckermann is an artist based in Vienna, Austria. Her work focuses on a discursive engagement with form and media that culminates in critical artistic reflections on our entanglement as individuals in current techno-economic situations. She works with various media including digital and physical environments, site-specific works, installations, videos and objects. She is also regarded as a pioneer of Game Art. Her work has been shown internationally since the early 1990s. She is the first recipient of the City of Vienna Award for Media Art (2014) and was awarded the Austrian State Prize for Media Art (2018). http://syl-eckermann.net. Sylvia Eckermann and Gerald Nestler have realized art projects together since 2005 and are members of the Vienna-based collective Technopolitics. technopolitics.info
• Gerald Nestler is an artist and writer who combines theory and conversation with video, installation, performance, codes, sound and speech. He explores the “derivative condition” of contemporary social relations, its models, technologies and narratives. His research on “aesthetics of resolution” tackles issues of transparency, black box information asymmetry and the regime change from representational to performative speech of power. He has received numerous grants and awards and his work has been shown internationally since the late 1990s. He develops and curates postdisciplinary formats between art, theory, science and other fields of expertise and has also published widely on art, finance and technology. Gerald holds a PhD from the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmith, University of London, UK. www.geraldnestler.net. Sylvia Eckermann and Gerald Nestler have realized art projects together since 2005 and are members of the Vienna-based collective Technopolitics. technopolitics.info

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