Margareta Klose "selfiie competence" online presentation

Margareta Klose “selfie competence” online presentation

Margareta Klose’s online presentation “selfie competence“ revolves around the issues of self-perception, self-representation, and self-optimization. The artist takes on practices of sincere self-exploration and reflects on the language of advertising and consumerism. In an ensemble of videos of her performances and interventions in semi-public spaces, Margareta Klose challenges us to ponder the following question in a humorous way: What is the self in our digital age of late capitalism?

The self, or at least one's own appearance, is considered a frequently used motif in the history of art and crosses various stylistic periods –from the Renaissance to Modernism and Contemporary Art. From the expressionist self-portrait of Vincent van Gogh with a cut-off ear to Cindy Sherman's staged photography, or Sophie Calle's conceptual self-experiments. Every one of these works plays with the artist’s body, using its depiction as the main theme. While Modern artists were often concerned with the representation of feelings, strategically employing light and dark tones to illustrate issues involving the state of mind in self-portraits, contemporary conceptual approaches often use the self-portrait to reflect on socio-political issues.

This is also the case for Margareta Klose's works which are presented in the digital exhibition "selfie competence". Her works "#selfcompetenceselfie", „Prozesskompetenz entwickeln", "Pathos" and "My Gourmet Diary" deal with the self-portrait in the digital age, bringing it back into the digital sphere and opening up a debate on a wide range of societal issues - questioning everything from the fitness cult, the language of the world of consumerism and facial recognition to one’s own attempts of developing further as well as one's self-perception.

Towards self-awareness without facial recognition: The collaborative online performance "#selfcompetenceselfie" (2020) was developed in the digital space. Margareta Klose and interested performers* met in regular intervals in a digital space and followed a strict manual of action, by filming themselves, concealing their faces, and reciting a mantra of self-competence while whirling like dervishes. The works "Pathos" (2017) and "My Gourmet Diary" (2019) deal with the self in a different way. Margareta Klose uses advertising techniques in the language-based installation "Pathos" and displays herself as an Influencer in the performance "My Gourmet Diary" (2019) and reflects on veganism, ecofeminism, food images on Instagram and ecological movements.

Inspired by the setting of international conferences and their video transmission, the artist slips into another role for her work „Prozesskompetenz entwickeln" (2019) and presents a lecture-performance on the process-oriented approach to art-making.

In a manner that is always humorous, the artist deals with self exercise and self-abandonment in different ways and shows us which processes the self is exposed to in a digital environment that is shaped by Instagram influencers and Facebook likes.

text by Aline Lenzhofer