16 -17 January 2016
NRW FORUM, Düsseldorf, Germany
8 - 9 June 2016
GOETHE INSTITUT MADRID, Spain
"Spain’s “body bubble” was an incredibly rich and timely contribution to the question of “who are we when we are online?” It clearly positioned itself as post-digital reinforcing not only the alterations/ extensions of the ego in the “parallel space” of the internet, but it stressed that inside or outside the web, we are embodied human beings. The body never leaves us behind, nor do we leave it behind… The fluidity between the five artists involved in the exhibit, carefully put together by curator-conductor Mateo Feijoo, and working each in a different medium, brought this “bubbled self” alive, making it into a post-digital-happening. All media involved reflected on the way we communicate and interact online: the looped music by Dr. Kurogo who was sadly off site; the live writing action by the charming performer Sonia Gómez who covered the bubble with German words, arbitrarily, according to their rhyme and feel, like in a surrealist poem; the tattooed body triptych made by an off site artist; and the live-recorded-edited-and-streamed version of the event by Vic Snake. If only the event had taken place the way Vic Snake recorded it! All of these media however were connected by the strong presence of Monoperro’s live “cave drawings" with a sexual under- and overtone. Monoperro’s illustrations uncovering the body’s “secrets", uncovering that which is imagined but never outspoken, that which is not seen but intuited, brought this exhibit into a completely new dimension. As a whole, this analogue media-orchestra reminded a bit of the Theater of the Absurd or a dream-sequence in Buñuel, pointing out that the web, as much as any “alteration of the ego” brings out what is deeply rooted in the self. This is something visceral. Something fleshy. Something intimate. Something personal. The shared “space” of the web was then literally covered by a beautiful bubble structure, a web-uterus, created by the architects Plastique Fantastique. When we opened up the vaginal “doors” for too long, the bubble let out too much air so that it started deflating. This made me wonder, how can we take out the communal air from the internet? Bravo Mateo and his team of artists for bringing the streaming egos alive!"
Bernadette Wegenstein
Curator:
Mateo Feijóo
Artists:
Monoperro
Sonia Gómez
Tomoto
Dr. Kurogo
Vic Snake
Oscar García Villegas
Plastique Fantastique
Thanks:
Anna Maria Ballester Bohn
Rebeca Castellano Alonso
