South as a State of Mind
Marina Fokidis
Video
Please note that this video is available in English.
In the context of the exhibition Europe: Ancient Future, Marina Fokidis gives an online lecture and talks about her curatorial work, contemporary art in Athens, as well as her projects in connection with documenta 14. Her curatorial practice reveals an exciting and unusual approach to Greek culture and the heritage of antiquity, which also repeatedly raises questions about authorship, cultural appropriation, and colonialism. Fokidis explains the role that the ancient concept of methexis plays for her, how it allows her to rethink the cultural medium of the monument and how she always manages to create new connections between very different people.
Marina Fokidis lives and works as a curator and writer in Athens. She is the founder of Kunsthalle Athena and the art and culture magazine South as a State of Mind. In 2014 she became the director of the Athens Artistic Office and curatorial advisor to documenta 14. Fokidis was a co-curator of 3rd Thessaloniki Biennial of Contemporary Art (2011), the commissioner and curator of the Greek Pavilion at the 51st Biennale di Venezia (2003) and one of the curators of T.I.C.A.B. – Tirana International Contemporary Art Biannual 1 (2001). She was associate curator of the Schwarz Foundation’s Pythagorion Art Space, for which she oversaw solo exhibitions of newly commissioned works by Slavs and Tatars (2013) and Nevin Aladağ (2014). From 2001 to 2008, she served as co-director of Oxymoron, an Athens-based non-profit organization promoting contemporary visual art in Greece internationally.
More contributions
Hans-Christian Dany: Oswald Wieners Überlegungen zum Spannungsfeld von Dandyism, Paranoia und KI, als frühe Ahnung der gegenwärtigen Probleme der großen Sprachmodelle mit Autophagie, Halluzinationen und dem Habsburg-Effekt
Video
As part of the exhibition A. I. O., Hans-Christian Dany approaches Oswald Wiener’s work from a contemporary perspective. Taking Die Verbesserung von Mitteleuropa, ein roman (The Improvement of Central Europe, a novel) as his starting point, he connects Wiener’s reflections on dandyism, paranoia, and artificial intelligence with today’s experiences with generative AI, and explores the unique resonances that Wiener’s speculative thinking continues to evoke in the present.
Exhibition Tour
A.rtificial I.ntrospection O.
Video
A.rtificial I.ntrospection O. explores the conditions of thinking, perception, and consciousness at the intersection of cybernetics, artificial intelligence, and self-observation, bringing Oswald Wiener’s ideas into dialogue with artistic positions from different generations.
Michael Krebber talks to 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.
Nicola Cipani, Thomas Eder
On Oswald Wiener’s « die verbesserung von mitteleuropa, roman »
Video
As part of the accompanying program for the exhibition A. I. O., the two renowned Oswald Wiener experts Nicola Cipani and Thomas Eder will discuss Die Verbesserung von Mitteleuropa (1969).
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.
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.
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.
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.