The Grave
2021
Oracle bot
Made for the Next Cloud Atelierhaus residency
The Grave is a digital device that produces oracular knowledge of Marxist characteristics. The oracle can be refreshed infinite times and will present a juxtaposition of visual and textual outputs.
This work explores the esoteric nature of the communist ideology, this is a territory full of contradictions given the materialistic approach of communism, concerned with the material conditions of class and their dialectics. However, it is impossible to not notice the spiritual nature of this worldview, I think everyone who has participated in leftist spaces has experienced this: through the songs, though the ritual of protest, by reading communist texts that literally promise paradise on earth. Such as in the case of the lyrics of L’ Internationale. Or the animistic approach in which we speak about certain concepts such as Revolution, El Pueblo, Capital, even Communism itself: the Spectre that haunts Europe.
The Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz said that at the movie theatre, every person watches their own film, this refers to individual subjectivities and, more importantly, to the “activator” quality of the movie. I see divination in a very similar sense, advanced mystical devices such as the tarot or astrology, in many cases operate just as activators or mirrors of a type of knowledge that the individual already holds. And in my opinion, good works of art play that same role as well, for instance it is undeniable the oracular nature of 1984 by George Orwell, of Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky, and, why not, of the many popular songs that we have heard and thought “oh, this is totally about me”.
The Grave uses extracts from the Communist Manifesto and combines them with curated images I have collected from Signal chats with my friends. My intention is to create an oracular instance using the spiritually-charged aesthetics of Marx and Engels’ text and visual media in relation to digital intimacies. In the end, this will be an exercise of reterritorialization that will ignite a multiplicity of meanings that borrow from socialist ideals.
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👯♀️ Matthias Pitscher (coding support)
📍️ Linz
⛓ website, article at We Make Money not Art
2021
Oracle bot
Made for the Next Cloud Atelierhaus residency
The Grave is a digital device that produces oracular knowledge of Marxist characteristics. The oracle can be refreshed infinite times and will present a juxtaposition of visual and textual outputs.
This work explores the esoteric nature of the communist ideology, this is a territory full of contradictions given the materialistic approach of communism, concerned with the material conditions of class and their dialectics. However, it is impossible to not notice the spiritual nature of this worldview, I think everyone who has participated in leftist spaces has experienced this: through the songs, though the ritual of protest, by reading communist texts that literally promise paradise on earth. Such as in the case of the lyrics of L’ Internationale. Or the animistic approach in which we speak about certain concepts such as Revolution, El Pueblo, Capital, even Communism itself: the Spectre that haunts Europe.
The Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz said that at the movie theatre, every person watches their own film, this refers to individual subjectivities and, more importantly, to the “activator” quality of the movie. I see divination in a very similar sense, advanced mystical devices such as the tarot or astrology, in many cases operate just as activators or mirrors of a type of knowledge that the individual already holds. And in my opinion, good works of art play that same role as well, for instance it is undeniable the oracular nature of 1984 by George Orwell, of Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky, and, why not, of the many popular songs that we have heard and thought “oh, this is totally about me”.
The Grave uses extracts from the Communist Manifesto and combines them with curated images I have collected from Signal chats with my friends. My intention is to create an oracular instance using the spiritually-charged aesthetics of Marx and Engels’ text and visual media in relation to digital intimacies. In the end, this will be an exercise of reterritorialization that will ignite a multiplicity of meanings that borrow from socialist ideals.
👯♀️ Matthias Pitscher (coding support)
📍️ Linz
⛓ website, article at We Make Money not Art