UTOPIA DYSTOPIA @ PARALLEL Vienna 2024, September 11th-15th, 2024 / Pavillon 16, Basement, room 16/001, Otto-Wagner-Areal, Baumgartner Höhe 1, 1140 Vienna

Fotocredit: photo Art Collection Schlichtner

UTOPIA DYSTOPIA

The Voyager mission in 1977 attempted to gain knowledge about the planetary system and interstellar space and to establish contact with extraterrestrial life forms in order to inform them of the existence of humanity. A record with greetings in 55 languages ​​and sounds of the earth was sent along with instructions for playing it.

For PARALLEL Vienna 2024, we are equipping our exhibition as a spaceship. As with the Voyager mission, images and news from our times and past times are transported into the future.

Let's imagine that people of the future or alien life forms encounter the Voyager probes or our spacecraft. Would the cultural property found be recognized as such and how would it be understood?  Would it be seen as evidence of intelligence and creativity, a gesture of friendship, colonial intent, or evidence of a gradual path to ruin? Would one recognize that in 1977 and 2024, respectively, the industrial age and the utopias of modernity still had a significant influence on the way of life of many people and the policies of various systems of power? Would one find posthumanist ideas and criticism of transhumanism here and an attempt to address impending dystopias?

This exhibition holds a mirror up to us and discusses concepts of what it means to be human. Different time perspectives are part of our concept. Thinking spaces for possible presents and futures are opened up.

David Blumenkind / Patrick Chan / Kike Chueca / Toninho Dingl / Anna Dumitriu / Thomas Gegner / Begi Guggenheim / Margareta Klose / Martin Krammer / Lukas Lex / Rica Fuentes Martinez / Daniel Mazanik / Vanessa Mazanik / Anna Pelz / Sebastian Pfeifhofer / Sebastian Pirch / Lia Qurina / Robert Resac / Bettina Schülke / Fabian Seiz / Alexander Nefedyev Skuridin / eliah nepomuk maitreya sölkner / emilia josephine maya sölkner / Clemens Stecher / Annette Tesarek / Norbert Unfug / Peter Várnai / Ana Vollwesen / Michael Vonbank / Jakob Liu Wächter / Adam Wiener / Moritz Wildburger / Oksana Zmiyevska / Flirty Horse Collective: Ivan Strelkin, Kasija Vrbanac Strelkin, Tatyana Juraszek, Barbara Angermaier, Weronika Strugala