OutlineMocak_mobile_icon
Mobile app
Plan your visit to the Museum, check out current events and visit our exhibitions with our Mobile App.
Download Close
Przejdź do głównej treści
Languages

//Utopian Pulse – Flares in the Darkroom//

Utopian Pulse – Flares in the Darkroom

16.01.2016 at 11 am

Published at:13.01.2016

Utopian Pulse – Flares in the Darkroom is a project by Ines Doujak and Oliver Ressler that has been executed in various formats since 2014. Banners made by 12 artists will be presented on MOCAK’s elevation, showcasing utopian projections that serve the purposes of secession from and resistance to the world of now. Most of these banners were originally produced for the façade of the Secession in Vienna.

Some works relate to the uprisings, occupations and social movements that have emerged in recent years, in a quest for a better world. Others are poetic references to the feeling that ‘something is missing’. They aim to liberate utopia from its totalitarian connotations and give it a fresh direction. The urge to create utopian visions manifests itself at times when people are searching for alternatives. Although the works are displayed consecutively, they interact, demonstrating different takes on the utopian drive of recent years.

The 12 banners (measuring 3.4 × 9 m) will be exhibited on the façade of Building B and changed monthly. They have been created by the following artists: Mariam Ghani (I), Daniela Ortiz (II), Undrawing the Line (III), Halil Altindere (IV), Giuseppe Campuzano / Miguel A. López (V), Matthew Hyland / Ines Doujak (VI), Christoph Schäfer (VII), Oreet Ashery (VIII), Bert Theis (IX), Nobodycorp. Internationale Unlimited (X), Oliver Ressler (XI), Etcétera (XII).

Duration: 16 January 201622 January 2017
Curators: Ines Doujak, Oliver Ressler
Co-ordinator:
Martyna Sobczyk
Venue:
façade of Building B

Utopian Pulse – Flares in the Darkroom has been funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) AR 183-G21.

The first will be presented banner

you say we are but dust

but who can stop the dust?

cities may fall and armies break,

but dust will still remain

Mariam Ghani, You say we are but dust…, 2014

Since 2004, Mariam Ghani and Chitra Ganesh have been running the experimental archive Index of the Disappeared, which involves collecting proverbs, protest slogans and fragments of poetry from all over the world. ‘You say we are the dust. Who can stop the dust?’ was the slogan that, in 2007, accompanied the protests of Indians who, as a result of industrialisation, had been driven out of their traditional woodland and rural areas.

On her banner, Ghani has paraphrased and amplified the slogan, whilst retaining the poetic tone of the original. She has succeeded in relating her work to the context of its original presentation in 2014 on the façade of the Secession building in Vienna – a symbol of art that cannot be contained within traditional conventions.