The conversation with colleagues of the Imagining Futures programme has started at vestibule, CSM London. Great to learn about the archival practice and specific urgency that motivated the projects by Aoife McNiece and Elizabeth Wright, and to receive their feedback for our Artefacts of Resistance project.
Commissioned by Serpentine Galleries, Minima Aesthetica acts as challenging response to D. Gonzales-Foerster’s show as well as homage to Adorno’s Minima Moralia (1951), playfully weaving visual contributions into the arguments.
A year ago, the environmental contamination issue in Santa Clara County caught my attention. After Fondacion Telefonica in Madrid, I am delighted to show more works of the From matter to data series at Vienna Art Week.
No complaints about having to get up at 5am – we experienced a sunrise to die for in a multitude of shades of amber – orange on top of the ⴻⵔⴳ ⵛⴱⵉ Erg Chebbi dunes in the Maroccan Sahara, where we filmed musician Abdelillah from the Arfoud Brothers & Sisters.
I remember the day I discovered archive.org amazed by the boldness of its mission; I remember browsing the Prelinger archives in disbelieve how the wealth of ephemeral films was all in a sudden made accessible to the world. It’s such joy to work and live in the heart of the Internet Archive in its HQ at Presidio, S.F., for a couple of weeks, developing a new film script. 
The commission by King’s X Somerset House Studios is nearing completion! Last stitches to finalise a costume, which addresses the issue of protesters need for visibility (to affect change) at the one hand, and anonymity on the other hand (to avoid state-sanctioned consequences). The costume will be performed by hand balance artist Natalie Reckert.
For Artefacts of Resistance I am looking forward to collaborating with Mukul Patel, founder of emergence.is, Dr. Srilata Sircar, lecturer in India and Global Affairs at the King’s India Institute, and her colleagues, Raktim Ray, University College of London, and Dr Ufaque Paiker, Ashoka University, India, on an innovative online archive documenting contemporary protest movements that builds on transnational solidarity networks.
During my artist residency at Stanford University, a conversation about health implications due to pollution caught my attention. Some of the most severely polluted sites, co-called Superfund sites, are located in Santa Clara County, widely known as Silicon Valley. TCE was stored underground, and containers started leaking, polluting the ground water for decades to come. I visited the locations: light industrial buildings, campuses of tech companies, parking lots, sports grounds. The only visible sign of ongoing monitoring of the levels of TCE were these lids on the street. Watch this space – my next project will explore the notion of responsibility & contamination.
As part of my Roberta Denning Visiting Artist residency I was invited to give a public lecture at Oshman Hall – due to COVID-19 only for Stanford folks. Stanford Daily, the student-run newspaper at Stanford University, summed up my artistic practice in this article >
Together with the curators of Solid Roof, Severe Weather, currently showing at WUK, Vienna, we developed an angular presentation format for the double screen media installation. Previously, the piece was shown as two opposite projections – both projections display a synchronised recording of the 3QR procedures, but the attentive observer will notice inexplicable room aberrations – the conferencing room behaves like soft architecture. The new presentation format is enhancing this moment of doubt and irritation in the visitor’s perception by bringing the screens closer together.
The exhibition will remain open until end of November – check the venue’s website for opening times.
Installation view. Third Quarterly Report by Manu Luksch, WUK 2021
For the publication Uncertain Archives. Critical Keywords for Big Data. MIT Press, publisher & editors chose a still from my video work Predictive Cities (2020) – I love it!
Here’s a link to my text contribution, Prediction, as pdf. It includes my text collage Alfiya – A Found Dystopia, using excerpts from the report by Human Rights Watch, China’s Algorithms of Repression: Reverse Engineering a Xinjiang Police Mass Surveillance App (2019)
I have just come off a talk event that followed the screening of my film ALGO-RHYTHM as part of the Austrian Film Month 2021 in Manila. Two hours flew past in no time, thanks to a dynamic conversation hosted by journalist Vino Lucero the highly interesting local contributors: Timothy Salomon, legal and advocacy officer Buklaran, who told us about his study on the public perception of voting, like to many representing “to bring change”, and who is now working with indigenous peoples on issues around land rights; Atty. Mildred Ople of YouthLed, which runs a training programme to foster understanding of the workings of democracy, from positions and their responsibilities to the dangers and opportunities that open up with digital campaigning; Atty. Carlo Africa, Executive Director of Hirayang Kabataan highlighted the need for informed voters with a good level of digital literacy to ensure a meaningful election process. That ALGO-RHYTHM might support the journey towards fairer elections in the Philippines even in the smallest way fills me with humble pride.
