SALON OF OPEN SECRETS – Mz* Baltazar’s Lab – Kunstraumproart
Event Navigation
SALON OF OPEN SECRETS – Mz* Baltazar’s Lab
Olivia Jaques, Patricia J. Reis, Lale Rodgarkia-Dara, Anna Watzinger and Stefanie Wuschitz
Opening: 14. September 19:00
Kaffee Kränzchen & Performance Olivia Jaques and Anna Watzinger
Sa, 17. September 11:00
Guided visit through the exhibition
Fr, 28. October 18:30
Finissage and artist talk
Catarina Reis
Erika Farina
Taguhi Torosyan
Photo: Gabriele_Krisch
When gas, electricity or water are scarce,
the immense interdependence of human and non-human needs
becomes tangible. How does a company in Taiwan, a mine in Portugal,
a river in Indonesia, or a glacier in Antarctica relate to meeting
our daily needs?
On the other hand, which needs of these living entities did we neglect because we mistakenly treated them as dead matter and mere commodities?
Ultimately, how do we position ourselves towards their past, present and future? How can we recover materiality, critically, as a contribution to a sustainable ecosystem?
Our global commodity chains and their entanglements in complex patriarchal structures
are the starting point for the artistic investigations of the Salon:
How could not only coffee but also hardware be fairly manufactured and traded?
How can we strengthen our communities in order to be able to
negotiate our needs and conflicts differently than before?
What does it even mean to be part of a far-reaching network or a specific community?
Artists from the collective Mz* Baltazar’s Laboratory have been dealing with these questions for two years and present various speculative proposals in the “Salon of Open Secrets”.
The collective Mz* Baltazar’s Lab weaves a cooperative web of feminist Hackers.
They are committed to problematizing Technopolitical interdependencies and to the process of collective search for solutions. The collective is not only a method, but also the material of the artistic debate.
Forms of collective knowledge transfer that were believed to be outdated, such as a secret, a coffee party or a manual, are playfully reactivated.
To remember these outdated forms but also become aware of their colonial context can inspire generative resistance.
About Mz* Baltazar's Lab
Mz* Baltazar’s Lab is a collective that runs a feminist hacklab in Vienna. Through workshops,
exhibitions and events targeted to female* and non-binary artists Mz* Baltazar’s Lab cultivates
feminist hacking as material and artistic methodology. Artists in this community try to diffract
science with activism and open source technology. The Salon of Open Secrets (SOS) is a slow
and calm call for rescue. It is answered by diverse entangled low voices, evolving around the
exhibition. Within the Salon, these allies share personal responses to current challenges. This
way Salon of Open Secrets combines techno-feminist, postcolonial and open source ethics to
open up a conversation on future worlds.
Patrícia J. Reis ist eine Installationskünstlerin und wohnt in Wien (AT). Sie hat Malerei (ESAD, Superior School of Art and Desing, Caldas da Rainha Portugal, 2004) und Medienkunst (Lusófona University, Lisbon, Portugal, 2011) studiert und 2016 ihren Ph.D. an der University of Èvora in Portugal gemacht. Reis ist eine ehemalige Forscherin von der National Science Technology Foundation in Portugal und hat von 2006 bis 2012 Fotografie, Video und digitale Kunst am Polytechnischen Institut Beja in Portugal unterrichtet. Derzeit ist sie als Künstlerin und Dozentin im Department für Digitale Kunst an der Universität für Angewandte Kunst in Wien beschäftigt und lehrt ebenso an der Kunstuniversität in Linz. In ihrer künstlerischen Praxis fokussiert sie sich auch auf feministische Themen und hinterfragt zugeschriebene Rollen von Frauen bezogen auf Repräsentation (im digitalen Bild) wie auch das Fehlen von weiblicher Partizipation und Sichtbarkeit hinter Produktionen neuer Technologien und Kunst. Seit 2012 ist sie Vorstandsmitglied vom Kollektiv Mz* Baltazar’s Lab. www.patriciajreis.com
Lale Rodgarkia-Dara, geboren 1976 in Wien, werkt als Medieninstallateurin, Elektroakustikerin und Autorin ebenda. Sie ist Gründerin der Elektronik Teatime und ist Wiener Produzentin im internationalen Kunstradio-Netzwerk radia radia.fm, Teil des Kollektivs Mz* Baltazar’s Laboratory und beteiligt sich an verschiedenen Kollektiven. Langjährige Zusammenarbeiten in Sound, Literatur und partizipativer Kunst im öffentlichen Raum u.a. mit Ula Schneider, Soho in Ottakring, Caroline Profanter, Stefanie Wuschitz, Veronika Mayer, Gina Mattiello, Ingrid Schmoliner, Christine Schörkhuber, Patricia Reis u.a. Seit 2003 hält sie Radio-Workshops mit Jugendlichen und Erwachsenen und gibt Lectures. Sie erfindet Projekte irgendwie immer mit Literatur, medialer Kunst und zumeist in transitorischen Räumen oder im Radio. www.speis.net
Stefanie Wuschitz, geboren 1981, ist Medienkünstlerin, Zeichnerin und forscht künstlerisch. Sie beschäftigt sich mit der Schnittstelle zwischen Kunst, Forschung und Technologie, mit Fokus auf Critical Media Practices (feminist hacking, open source technology, peer production). Sie studierte Transmediale Kunst an der Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst in Wien und an der New York University und schloss ihr Doktorat an der TU Wien ab. Sie gründete das feministische Künstlerinnen Kollektiv Mz* Baltazar’s Laboratory und ist international als Künstlerin und Universitätslektorin tätig. Ihre Zeichnungen, Videos und Installationen wurden in zahlreichen internationalen Ausstellungen präsentiert. www.grenzartikel.com
Olivia Jaques (1986, Wien) ist künstlerisch Forschende mit Wurzeln in der bildenden Kunst und arbeitet als solche am liebsten in kollektiven Gefügen. So kollaboriert sie seit 10 Jahren mit Marlies Surtmann, mit der sie nach dem Künstler*innen-Kurator*innen Kollektiv Friday Exit 2017 das Performatorium gründete. Momentan ist sie Research Affiliate am TQW.
Anna Watzinger based in Vienna (A), holds a diploma in sculpture from the Vienna Art School and a master degree in digital/media art from the University of Applied Arts Vienna and works within various media, subjects and projects, focusing on this liquid space of encounter of different things and phenomenon. She showed her works at many places in Vienna and abroad, including some artist in residencies. Anna Watzinger received an award of KÖR and was/is member of different art collectives.
Catarina Reis (b. 1989) is an architect and designer, currently working on a practice-based research PhD thesis at FBAUL, Lisbon, Portugal (Faculty of Fine Arts, Lisbon University), at the intersection of Art, Science and Technology. Her research project Tentacular Ecologies seeks to explore the potential of “micro third landscapes” as spatial interfaces for otherness.
Taguhi Torosyan is an artist, curator and researcher based in Vienna, Austria. She is working at the intersection of hacker/maker cultures, feminist new materialisms, decolonial theory, relational art and pedagogy, and posthuman ecologies. She has been a member of Mz* Baltazar's Laboratory hackerspace in 2019-2022.
She is a PEEK fellow at the Education Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna since 2020, where she works with Dr. Stefanie Wuschitz and Dr. Patrícia J. Reis on "Feminist Hacking: Building Circuits as an Artistic Practice" art-based research project. Torosyan is a former visiting fellow at apexart in NYC and former visiting faculty at the Art Theory, History and Management Department of Yerevan State Institute for Theatre and Cinematography.
Torosyan’s work has been shown at Centrale FIES, Dro, Permanent: Georg Kargl and vbkö in Vienna, Aalborg University Copenhagen, Schwankhalle Bremen & LOFFT, Leipzig. She has curated exhibitions, programs and workshops with a strong focus on media art, performance and cinema both in institutional setups Art Factory, Lodz, ICA Yerevan & Nest artist residency and community center / 2012-2015, Studio 20, Yerevan and the Centre of Contemporary Art Tbilisi.
Erika Farina (IT) lives and works in Vienna since 2009. She is a trained tailor and works in the fields of textile and fine arts. She studies Design, Material Culture and Experimental Practices and Art and Communication Practices at the University of applied Arts in Vienna.
Website: www.mzbaltazarslaboratory.org
Leave a Reply