[artinfo] Open Call: Dark Society - SPEKTRUM, Berlin

[by way of János Sugár]

OPEN CALL: DARK SOCIETY

Curated by Alfredo Ciannameo

The media construct of Reality is something which 
is not easily approachable even through 
technological means of what is perceived, 
measured, and to be understood. The truth of a 
model, the efficiency of a system, our living 
together all encompass some hidden aspects that, 
by definition, are creating an obscure shadow 
which subtly influences and effects our visible 
world. The open call Dark Society questions 
artistic processes of building media works which 
unfold relationships with those ´hidden sides´ 
made available to us by looking at their extreme 
effects and consequences.

Even though sophisticated instruments in Physics 
are not yet able to directly observe phenomena 
such as dark matter or dark energy, we are still 
indirectly able to think and elaborate on the 
nature of these hidden forces of the Universe by 
measuring, for instance, consistent shifts of the 
light spectrum on celestial bodies. In the 
techno-imaginary, those dark dimensions see 
themselves expressed through extreme impacts such 
as human biological reconfigurations, proposed by 
the theory of Singularity, and/or the ecological 
collapse of our planet, predicted by the 
Anthropocene movement, building awareness 
fundamentally on the poetic of techno-apocalipse. 
Technophobia (or for some trends towards the 
desired distopic future) is plaguing the public 
imagination when experiments like the Large 
Handron Collider risk producing a black hole that 
would end all mankind as we know it.

Dark dimensions are increasing in many levels and 
becoming more perceivable proportionally a state 
of anomy within the complexity of scientific and 
technological possibilities opened up in the 
contemporary Society and translated in new loops 
of human-to-machine interaction.

Four exhibitions will be organized by looking at 
this main concept articulating different aspects 
complementary to one artistic question of 
obscurity in Science, Body/Identity, Technology 
and Environment which are interviewed realities 
funding our basic interface of Society.

DARK IDENTITIES DARK BODIES: deadline 20 Feb 2017 
- Exhibition (17 to 19 March 2017)
DARK TECHNOLOGIES DARK WEB: deadline 1 April 2017 
- Exhibition (21 to 23 April 2017)
DARK HABITATS DARK ECOLOGY: deadline 1 May 2017 - 
Exhibition (26 to 28 May 2017)

Dark Society invites all artistic works 
questioning those hidden aspects through 
reflecting processes in the intersections of 
Science, Technology and Society that, when 
brought to extreme consequences, can create a 
tangible experience of their effects on our 
everyday life in terms of memory, informations, 
environment, politics/activism, body and habitat, 
sexuality and/or on our general but specific way 
to sense reality. The open call aims to collect 
projects approaching all technological media and 
type (such as installations, performances, 
screenings, lectures). Beside invitation, all the 
relevant proposals will be included in the 
open-call on-line catalogue.

You can apply by sending your proposal including 
description of the work and AVdocumentation 
to <mailto:info at spektrumberlin.de>info at spektrumberlin.de mentioning 
the subject Proposal: Dark Society



DARK SCIENCE
The exhibition Dark Science will present works 
approaching specific phenomena focusing on their 
physicality by means of the paradox underlaying 
our human relation to them in terms of states of 
absence, immateriality, evanescence and void. 
This inner fact pushes the boundaries of our 
imagination and reflects a constant need to sense 
and understand levels of the physical world in an 
observable and measurable matter. Traces and 
shadows of those transitory presences become the 
territory of exploration for artists with 
different approaches from an intentionality on 
presenting a direct experience of the phenomena 
to the impact of such elements produces 
indirectly in our culture and society.

Jean-Marc Chomaz: VOID SPACES - Installation & Conference performance
Is the expansion of space, or the light that 
finally remembers that the universe has an age or 
that he no longer has one? But the shadows that 
our bodies cast on the distant galaxies 
inevitably shift to the red, leaving on our 
silhouettes a pale iridescence of blue. How to 
reverse the time and light the Universe? How to 
retrace the double star of your eyes? Vacuum 
contracted by the cry of absence. The pellucid 
rags of night mingle with the living. Great black 
sails that the solar wind rises, they transform 
the present into an ark of Void spaces.

Michael Kugler & Sebastian Wolf: BRUME - Installation
In Brume, the artist duo Michael Kugler and 
Sebastian Wolf investigate immateriality by 
coaxing fog into a semi-geometrical, 
self-organizing form. The viewer becomes a 
catalyst for disturbance, generating turbulences 
that not only illustrate the carrying power of 
the air, but upset a perceived equilibrium, and 
reveal the spatial and temporal volatility of 
such a phenomenon. 'Brume' operates in the 
margins between ubiquity and the finite, symmetry 
and the amorphous, transience and permanence, and 
gesturing at the paradox of immateriality.



SPEKTRUM | art science community
Bürknerstr. 12
U8 Schönleinstrasse
12047  Berlin
<http://www.spektrumberlin.de>www.spektrumberlin.de