OVER is the title of
Sidsel Meineche Hansen’s solo exhibition at MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38, and the name of an augmented reality app as part of the show. In the exhibition, a series of wall-mounted sculptures (
Hollow Eyed #1-6, 2017) wax-cast in silicon metal – a raw material of the digital economy, most commonly used in the manufacture of microchips – and roughly approximating emoticons, function as trigger-objects for the app. Once recognized, a superimposed layer of animation, activated through a smartphone camera, narrates a short script narrated by an anonymous A.I. robot, which discusses its exploitation in the tech industry. Both the industrial site for the production of the sculptures, as depicted in the promo video
Maybrey Foundry (2017), and the development of the app become broader contexts for the show.
In addition, the OVER app casts a virtual anti-fa symbol into any physical location in and outside of the exhibition while
Anti-fa (2017), also made from the same material as the sculptures, hangs from Ludlow 38’s façade in order to physically demarcate the space. This piece was made after the closure of the project space LD50 in London last February, following protests against its affiliation with neo-reactionary and alt-right ideologies. As such, Hansen’s reuse of such blunt symbolism is in active opposition to the echo-chamber of extreme right content within the digital realm, and a personal desire to publically address the political correlation between virtual and physical space.
OVER continues previous works by Hansen that consider virtual space as a continuation of capitalist reality. At the core of the artist’s critique is the popular car service Uber’s business model of an app and its pursuit of automation as a frictionless space of connectivity in parallel with Silicon Valley’s contested societal notion of corporate citizenship. The OVER app is available for Android in Play Store (search “OVER Ludlow”) and for iPhone in the gallery.
The exhibition was preceded by
this is for you. you are a community. this is my performance. you are my material. this is a prison. leave when you want. by
keyon gaskin on May 23, and
Robot Means Forced Labor, two public talks by
Anson Rabinbach on May 18, and
Louis Chude-Sokei on May 20, initiated by the artist and organized together with Saim Demircan within the framework of Hansen’s exhibition.
Sidsel Meineche Hansen is based in London. Her recent exhibitions include
SECOND SEX WAR at Trondheim Kunstmuseum & Gasworks, London (2016);
No Right Way 2 Cum at Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2016);
ONE-Self at Künstlerhaus Bremen & Temporary Gallery, Cologne (2015), and
INSIDER at CUBITT, London (2015). She is currently included in the group exhibition
University of Disaster at the Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 57th Venice Biennale, and will have forthcoming solo shows at Rodeo, London, later this year, and Kunstwerke, Berlin, in 2018.
Curated by
Saim Demircan
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