Isolated Subjects: Media Archaeological Portraits and Networked Artistic Practice in the Era of Quarantine

Application summary

Despite reassurances from various governments that things will be "business as usual" within a few weeks or months, until we have a vaccine for COVID-19 it will continue to haunt our every public interaction in serious and lasting ways. The art world must immediately reassess its strategies of sharing and exposure; reevaluate what is meant by exhibition, festival, concert, installation, lecture, or workshop; and recognize the situation not only of the much-mythologized artist in isolation, but also of a public in isolation. What constitutes meaningful interaction between these parties? In response to this new reality, Isolated Subjects proposes a networked extension both of my own practice as an experimental audiovisual performer and educator, and of the second edition of an international festival which I co-organize called Vectorhack, scheduled for October in European Capital of Culture 2020 Rijeka, Croatia. Taking as my point of departure a media-archaeological portrait series of dozens of people around the world currently in isolation, I intend to open up my working process through direct collaboration, online performance, and workshops which give others direct access both to the code I create and to the obsolete media devices I use to render aesthetic objects from this code. Results from these interactions can then be sent out into a distributed network of the artists involved further collaborations which can be viewed from people's homes as well as online. At the end of this experimental process, I hope to arrive at a new strategy for the upcoming festival which both acknowledges the circumstances of the quarantine era and is far more globally inclusive than the usual European jet-set model.