(UN)EXPECTED COMMUNITIES
Aïda Camprubí
Rosa Pistola
“If you ask Mexicans, they will tell you that they are Catholic, but then they talk to you about their beliefs and they have absolutely nothing to do with the Roman Catholic religion as we know it, and they don't even realise it. There are many pre-Hispanic rites that are still respected and practised. Santa Muerte and Devil Worship are stronger now in the barrios due to the influx of beliefs from the Caribbean region, like the Yoruba tradition and Palo Monte. There is a lot of Santeria practised, which involves showing respect to various figures, including the devil who is considered a fallen saint. The devil, Santa Muerte and Guadalupe are the most important. It is as if God doesn't exist or is just a minor character. I love it”.
ON CENSORSHIP, DEEPFAKES AND BEING A GIRL ONLINE
Anika Meier
The internet is no longer what it once was. Today, it is a breeding ground for ideologies and hate. Once, it was a refuge for young people who felt they didn't quite belong anywhere. A few days ago, US artist, Maya Man, tweeted: "am I over being so online or am I just maturing." The question mark was missing. Perhaps it was a lapse due to writing for an online audience, where everything has to happen quickly. News must be sent out into the world as if someone is waiting for personal alerts. Or perhaps it was a deliberate choice by Man, because she already knows the answer. Maya Man is one of over 40 artists participating in the exhibition Body Anxiety in the Age of AI. The 10th anniversary of the influential online exhibition, Body Anxiety, curated by Leah Schrager and Jennifer Chan in 2015.
MATERIAL EVIDENCE OF WAR
Counterfuture
Wars not only leave behind ruins and casualties but also fragments of ideology, remnants of personal lives, and the detritus of state narratives. This contribution examines three artifacts found in Russian-occupied territories: a Russian translation of the novel The Love Machine, handwritten letters from children to soldiers, and a propaganda leaflet. Each object tells a story of war, not through explosions or battles, but through the quiet persistence of ideology embedded in everyday materials. The objects left behind by retreating Russian forces are material evidence of the occupying power’s mindset.
DIGITAL MATERIALITIES 0s AND 1s, PLURALITY AND POWER
Doreen Ríos
Acknowledging the variety of digital materialities also means revealing the hidden aspects of their production. It invites us to break free from the misleading metaphors that have led us to believe the supposed softness of digital objects leaves no room for direct consequences that affect our bodies and those of others. In reality, the situation is quite different. Our fascination with these technological objects, along with the desires we build around them, are deeply rooted in the extractive and damaging logic of programmed obsolescence and its repercussions.
CRACKS
Gabriel Ventura
Endgame:
ruins, flowers and vengeance.
The immutable syntax of the temple
does not respond.
(Grass continues to grow over the young
wooden hands, sectioned)
Stone on stone,
slow fracture of the immobile.
DRIFT, REBELLION, AND RESISTANCE
Laura Sisteró
Tolyatti Adrift is more than just a film about old cars and drifting; it is a meditation on transformation, on how humans can find in the machine not only a means of locomotion but an ally in the fight against a system that steals their voice. By reinventing the Lada –a car that once symbolised communist progress and utopia– Tolyatti's young people are showing us that hope can be reborn even in the most inhospitable of settings. With every drift, with every roar of the engine, they are forging a new narrative: that of a youth that refuses to be defined by the scars of its surroundings and which, through the art of drifting, is asserting its right to dream, to feel and to live freely.
THE SYMPTOM OF SOCIAL OBSERVATION
Melville The Third
The artwork that I’ve contributed is from an exhibition I put on last year in my hometown, entitled “lager, lines and louts”. The main idea was to explore escapism. Why do people need to participate in the things they do as a release from the realities of life? My work touches on topics of drink, drugs, violence and the different ways we find freedom from the monotony of life. One of my interests is the classic idea of Brits abroad. British people will save up their money for a big booze up in the sunshine in places like Spain, trying to forget the pressures of real life. Whether trapped in unhappy relationships or in jobs they hate, I want to represent their struggles. Some of the more violent pieces in my collection portray football hooligan culture.
GAZA TRUISMS: THE AXIS OF POSTING
Shumon Basar
Towards the end of 2023, a few months into the Gaza genocide (a term that does not just reflect my opinion, but is a legal term corroborated by countless human rights organisations), someone posted in Story format: ‘Instagram is a news app’. How did this platform — once derided even by me as a superficial space for Coachella adjacent cringe selfies and vacuous HD food porn — become an indispensable source of real time information on the atrocities occurring Palestine? It’s related to what I call ‘Fascistmaxxing’— the unmasking and unveiling of a world where power sheds it’s pretence of shame. Instead, we see the brutal, coordinated forces of colonial and neocolonial Empire wreak annihilation through every channel, including centralised, legacy media. The BBC and the New York Times, supposedly rigorous trustworthy news organisations, have been exposed as state captured instruments in what we could call the ‘Media Industrial Complex’. This works in tandem with the ‘Military Industrial Complex’, the ‘Entertainment Industrial Complex’ and the ‘Financial Industrial Complex’.
CHAMPIONING VINES, WINE AND THE WAY OF LIFE THAT GOES WITH THEM: THE INTOXICATING EXAMPLE OF THE “MIDI ROUGE”!
Stéphane Teixo
The revolutionary spirit, like good wine, requires time to mature. Across the shared history that brought us together here, it took root in a harsh and stony land—mountainsides terraced over generations under the burning heat of the Mediterranean sun. It was irrigated with the blood, sweat and tears of the rural workforce, who had only their labour with which to prosper and their solidarity with which to defend themselves. It was harvested collectively as an age-old ritual deeply rooted in the oral Occitan tradition already shared by the Cathar rebels and the insurgents of the “Midi Rouge”. It is drunk, often as a shared or communal experience; a symbol of togetherness, a unifying force in human communities. It can also intoxicate, as it did in the 1970s when violence broke out, causing several deaths and a massive hangover for the movement's protagonists.
THE HARMLESS CAR: OR, AN ECONOMICS PRIMER FOR DESIGNERS
ThomasThwaites
Weather: Sunny, occasional cumulus clouds, occasional short light rain, gentle breeze, 10mph, from the SSW. The day of the first test drive has arrived. My nerves are frayed. Fear of shame and embarrassment is my main motivator. We have a film crew who’ve come all the way from Korea (South) to film proceedings, my family are here and every visitor to the car factory (gallery) Theun and I have been working in, I cheerfully invited to “come and see the test drive!”. With every invitation, I heaped on further pressure. God, what a letdown if the car doesn’t even move. ‘Boooo’ the crowd will roar, with individual muttered comments, as I hang my head, ‘uggh what a waste of time!’, ‘how embarrassing’, ‘I feel so sorry for his family’… A flung rotten cabbage hits me square on the temple. And so, the simple fear of shame has rather overridden my high-minded ideals. I have a car woven from willow, not pressed from steel, lightweight and compostable, with four wheels that at least have a chance of rolling across the ground—and rolling over any innocent creature without harming them. But, rubber in its tyres and an electric motor with lithium in its batteries. Not quite harmless, not quite a car. However, realistically, building a harmless car is going to be more than a couple of weeks work right? This, then, is just the first prototype. The pre-production model. My ambition has been somewhat scaled back. But I realise I can decide what constitutes success or failure. I can decide the test. My car, my goal posts, I’ll move them if I want to.