Professor Paolo Pedercini‘s game “Dogness” and work by School of Art alumna Shana Moulton MFA ’04 are included in the 6th Athens Biennial, titled “ANTI.” The exhibition is on view at the TTT Building, Esperia Palace, Benakeios Library and Kolokotroni 4 from October 26 through December 9.
“ANTI” dissects the way we polarize, fight and antagonize in post-digital times: in the age of social media, of neo-reactionary movements, of post-truth nihilism and of conspiracy theories developed by the alt-right. “ANTI” is about inventing the most effective strategies to oppose the hate of the alt-right and other neo-reactionary fronts. Can we discover strategies that go beyond the algorithmic, visual and political regimes weaponized by regressive and fascist agendas?
Today, an oppositional stance, an attitude of ANTI, seems to encompass wide arenas of life, including cultural expressions, identity politics, art labor and media including weird advertising, video games and music video productions. In other words, attitudes of non-conformity, dissent and alternativeness are rapidly becoming canonized and commodified. How can we tackle the dynamic dialectics between ANTI’s eruption and ANTI’s commodification?
The artists in “ANTI” interrogate the post-digital era, scenarios of transhuman enhancement, cults of wellness as well as bodily and spiritual transformation. They do so by devising structures of everyday life: from the gym to the shopping mall, from the online forum to the sex dungeon, from the office to the political front. The artistic devices composing the 6th Athens Biennale reveal the dangers of today’s neo-reactionary revolt, asking what might motivate reactionary emotions and fantasies and how to change the current structures of pleasure. As such, the 6th Athens Biennale invites viewers to explore various instead-ofs, both speculative and earnest, open to contamination, dirty and alive.