Intramachinic Atmospheres:
Florian Hecker and the Fabrication of Sensing

Lecture + Reception

So, 21.11.2021
15:00 Uhr The Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT)

To mark the opening of Florian Hecker - Resynthesizers, an exhibition by Florian Hecker produced by Equitable Vitrines at the MAK Center’s Fitzpatrick-Leland House, Author and Art Historian Ina Blom will deliver a talk entitled Intramachinic Atmospheres: Florian Hecker and the Fabrication of Sensing on November 21, 2021 at REDCAT. ​​​
CLICK HERE TO RSVP In Hecker’s compositions, the synthesis and resynthesis of sound at the granular level is oriented around processes whose complexity might well be described in atmospheric terms. They allow us to discuss what is at stake for environmental thought when computational systems produce realities that are not based on simulation, but on specifically machinic forms of sensing and being. Ultimately, these works give a contemporary spin on the processes of synthesis and abstraction that were key to late 19th Century aesthetic and industrial modernity.

An opening reception for Resynthesizers will follow the lecture.

Organized by Equitable Vitrines and supported by the Goethe-Institut, Florian Hecker’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles is staged within R.M. Schindler’s Fitzpatrick-Leland House, owned and operated by the MAK Center for Art and Architecture. The exhibition features synthetic sound compositions, olfactory accords, and diffused text. Taken together, these components, respectively created in dialogue with Alberto de Campo, Axel Roebel, Marc vom Ende and Philip Kraft, and Robin Mackay, simultaneously constitute a visceral field of intensities and a pointed analysis of the molecular construction of sensory experience in the technological present. 


Ina Blom is a professor at the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas at the University of Oslo and Wigeland Visiting Professor in the Department of Art History, University of Chicago. Recent books include The Autobiography of Video. The Life and Times of a Memory Technology (New York: Sternberg Press, 2016), On the Style Site. Art, Sociality and Media Culture (New York: Sternberg Press, 2007/2009) as well as the edited volumes Memory in Motion. Archives, Technology and the Social (Amsterdam University Press, 2016) and Raoul Hausmann et les avant-gardes (Paris: Les presses du réel, 2014).
 
FLORIAN HECKER (b. 1975, Germany) works with synthetic sound, the listening process, and the audience's auditory experience to explore audiology and psychoacoustical knowledge. Recent solo exhibitions and performances include Synthetic Statistics, Porta 33, Funchal, Portugal (2019); Synopsis / Seriation, CU Art Museum, University of Colorado Boulder, CO, USA (2018); Halluzination, Perspektive, Synthese, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; Synopsis, Tramway, Glasgow (both 2017); FAVN, Alte Oper Frankfurt; Formulations, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main (both 2016); Formulations, Culturgest, Porto; A Script for Machine Synthesis, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and at the Maison de la Radio, Paris; and those at Künstlerhaus Graz, and Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis (all 2015); Sadie Coles HQ, London; Galerie Neu / MD72, Berlin; documenta 13, Kassel; and Nouveau Festival, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (all 2012). Hecker has an extensive discography, including Synopsis Seriation (Editions Mego, Vienna, 2021); Statistique Synthétique (GRM Portraits, Paris, 2020); Inspection II (Editions Mego, Vienna & Urbanomic Falmouth, UK, 2019); A Script for Machine Synthesis (Editions Mego, Vienna, 2017); Articulação Sintetico (Editions Mego, Vienna, 2017); and Hecker Leckey Sound Voice Chimera (Pan, Berlin, 2015).

Equitable Vitrines, founded in 2014, is a Los Angeles 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that produces exhibitions and educational programming in Los Angeles. Its work is based upon the conviction that art is valuable because it facilitates the emergence of new aesthetic and discursive forms. Equitable Vitrines holds the belief that new forms are required to enhance humanity’s self-understanding in this era of unprecedented, technologically-mediated change.

Support for Florian Hecker – Resynthesizers is made possible by lead funding from the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. Generous support is provided by the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Michael Asher Foundation, the Wilhelm Family Foundation, the University of Edinburgh, the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles, the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and the County of Los Angeles Department of Arts and Culture. Additional support is provided by Digital View, Inc., Symrise AG, and the Roy and Edna Disney Calarts Theater (REDCAT).