Give Rise To Omsk Social Club & Alexander Iezzi
Fucking Hardcore Self-Divinization Weekender
11. – 12.6.2022
Video
The video shows a montage of the 4th performance in the series _Give Rise To_is a collaboration of Omsk Social Club and Alexander Iezzi. _Fucking Hardcore Self-Divinization Weekender_was presented as a live installation on 11 & 12/06.
The artists were inspired by the work of the French dramatist and theater director Antonin Artaud, who joined the surrealist circle in Paris in the 1920s. Artaud coined the term “theater of cruelty,” which represents an attempt to create a form of anti-theater using various strategies including abolishing the border between stage and auditorium, using strong physical gestures, and also non-harmonic sounds and effects. His works and writings often contain apocalyptic scenes that inspired Omsk Social Club & Alexander Iezzi for their own script. In this, a dialogue on Artaud’s theater serves as a starting point, whereby an actor proclaims the end of the world and another actor replies that there are two worlds that collide in the action unfolding.
After this scene, eight characters residing at a secret place called Mu are sent out on a journey tasked with collecting “all the sounds of the universe,” which are released when the two fictitious worlds collide. Mu stands for a hypothetical or fictitious sunken continent, also known by other names such as Lemuria, and which science fiction and esoteric literature situate somewhere between Madagascar and India. Here, it is claimed, is the place where human civilization really developed. In order to do justice to this idea of a mystical world, over a period of two days each character is played by two people. Right from the beginning, each participant is given to feel that they have the leading role in this play, a situation that leads to each character creating experiences for all the others. The film made of this is the basis material for the installation on show in Graz, and during the performance the camera is a tool that thus facilitates analysis and contemplation of the action. On the first day of the roleplay only sound recordings are made, and on the second day only film without sound.
For the presentation within the Give Rise To series, these recordings are merged to form the immersive installation. In order to activate the installation, one of the characters from the roleplay travels to Graz to be the “gate keeper” who opens the “doors” to Fucking Hardcore Self-Divinization Weekender. Entrance into the cosmos of this work is initiated by a singing performance for the audience, which takes place at two-hourly intervals between 6 pm and midnight.
The Fucking Hardcore Self-Divinization Weekender project not only draws on a subversive and eclectic concept that challenges our concept of reality, but is also an example of how media-specific borders between performance, re-enactment, and video can be transgressed in contemporary art to create complex systems and contexts.
Curated by Cathrin Mayer
Video: kunst-dokumentationen.com
Artists
Participating artists
Omsk Social Club
Omsk Social Club has exhibited throughout Europe in various institutions, galleries, theaters and off-sites, including Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; Haus der elektronischen Kunst, Basel; HKW, Berlin; Seventeen, London; Volksbühne, Berlin; Stroom, The Hague; Light Art Space, Berlin. They have been included in CTM Festival (2021), 34th Ljubljana Biennial (2021), transmediale, 6th Athens Biennial (2018), The Influencers (2018), and Impakt Festival (2018). In 2021, they were co-curators of the 7th Athens Biennial with Larry Ossei-Mensah.
Alexander Iezzi
Iezzi’s work moves between sculptural installations, video, radio and live performance. He received his MFA from the Piet van Zwart Institute, Rotterdam. In recent years he has exhibited solo or together with other artists at KW, Berlin; MoMA, New York; Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam; Galerija Močvara, Zagreb; and Galleri Syster, Luleå. Together with composer Billy Bultheel he publishes music under the pseudonym 33 on the label C.A.N.V.A.S..
Dylan Kerr
Dylan Kerr is an Irish artist based in Berlin. Their work takes the form of durational, endurance-based performance, drawing on the embodied languages of ritual, protest, and worship. Their practice also focuses on audio-based work which operates on the cusp of sound art and contemporary music, with a prevalent influence of religious arrangements. Much of their work has been made public through site specific performances and installations in adapted-use buildings.
More contributions
Michael Krebber in conversation with Sandro Droschl
Video
As part of the exhibition A.rtificial I.ntrospection O., Michael Krebber speaks with Sandro Droschl about his artistic practice and his engagement with the writings and conceptual models of Oswald Wiener.
Michael Krebber in conversation with Sandro Droschl A.rtificial I.ntrospection O.
Exhibition Tour
Slide show
The exhibition A.rtificial I.ntrospection O. (A.I.O.) explores questions of thought, perception, and subjectivity at the intersection of introspection, cybernetics, and artificial intelligence. Its point of departure is the work of the Austrian writer, cognitive psychologist, and cybernetician Oswald Wiener (1935 – 2021), whose genuine thinking since the 1950s critically navigated between these fields while systematically resisting institutional appropriation.
Slide Show A.rtificial I.ntrospection O. Dr. Brigitte Borchhardt-Birbaumer
Susanne Wenger’s painting between Africa and Europe
Video
In her lecture, art historian and curator Brigitte Borchhardt-Birbaumer examines Susanne Wenger’s work as a transcultural Gesamtkunstwerk that bridges European modernism and Yorùbá ritual practice, creating a new sacred aesthetic that merges art, ritual, and cultural boundaries.
Brigitte Borchardt Kathy Rae Huffman
FROM CYBERFEMINISM
UNTIL NOW
Video
Kathy Rae Huffman’s lecture traces the evolution of cyberfeminism since the 1990s: it connected women in the digital sphere, challenged existing power structures, and presented examples — from VNS Matrix to contemporary digital activism — that highlight critiques of platform corporations, AI cultures, and global inequalities.
Kathy Rae Huffman Xol Meissner
Concert
Video
New York-based artist Xol Meissner — the alter ego of composer Mauro Hertig — has transformed the HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark into a hypnotic soundscape of extraordinary intensity with his haunting music, which oscillates between contemporary classical and avant-garde rock.
Xol Meissner Karin M. Schmidlechner
Styrian women during and after National Socialism
Video
In her research and in the volume Aus dem Blickfeld (Out of Sight), co-edited with Heimo Halbrainer, Karin Maria Schmidlechner demonstrates that the lived realities of Styrian women during the Nazi era and the postwar period were diverse and ambivalent. Hence, she broadens the scholarly discourse on their daily lives while simultaneously deconstructing common narratives such as that of the conformist woman or the so-called “rubble woman.”
Karin M. Schmidlechner Eva Ursprung
The Art of Surfacing
Slide show
With the exhibition The Art of Surfacing, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark presents the multifaceted work of Austrian artist, musician, and curator Eva Ursprung, who was awarded the Honorary Prize of the Province of Styria in 2024. Her cross-media, feminist, and socially critical approaches revolve around the element of water as a metaphor for change and political and ecological processes.
Slide show Eva Ursprung Susanne Wenger
Àdùnní Olórìṣà
Slide show
Susanne Wenger gilt als eine zentrale Künstlerin Österreichs nach 1945 und als frühe Wegbereiterin des Surrealismus. Ihr Œuvre, das Skulpturen, Gemälde, Zeichnungen, Drucke und Batiken umfasst, überschreitet ästhetische Kategorien und verbindet Kunst, Spiritualität und Mythos.
Slide Show Susanne Wenger