The graphic design of the 23rd International Feminist and Queer festival Red Dawns by Urška Preis

Exhibition opening 7.3.2022 at 18:00

Opening hours: 12:00 – 18:00

The 23rd International Feminist and Queer Festival of Red Dawns invites the general public and the intermedia clique to the next event in the multi-year FriFormA\V cycle, which will feature three Austrian artists Anna Lerchbaumer, Conny Zenk and Hui Ye, and Slovenian intermedia artist Nika Erjavec. The evening performance and exhibition entitled Feminism is Taking Over the City! will present several works by four contemporary audio-visual artists questioning the role of the city and, indirectly, the role of women* in the city.

Anna Lerchbaumer, Conny Zenk, Hui Ye and Nika Erjavec will present their newest sound-visual works. The artists combine contemporary sound and visual and video production, and their artistic impressions are often presented in the form of audio-video installations, sculptural sound installations, and performances with an emphasis on modern experimental electro-acoustic sound.

In the exhibition and opening performance, they will represent through their works the connection with the urbanity of city life in various ways, and question the urban space as their own, ours, the role of women* in it and try to ‘recapture’ it through art. Using critical reflection on the contemporary social context, they will explore the relationship between city dwellers and the loss of space in gentrification processes, a process that affects all city dwellers, and thus create multimedia creations that carve new fields of artistic research.

The performance and exhibition Feminism is taking over the City! will, within the framework of the 23rd International Feminist and Queer Festival of the Red Dawns, occupy the urban space in a positive, albeit critical, way, like all people, living beings and nature itself do with everyday actions. The exhibition will thus bring the viewers closer to an engaged approach to creation and active co-creation of the city and city life through the eyes of art, which is an important building block of modern society.

The exhibition and performance is part of the 23rd International Feminist and Queer Festival of the Red Dawns, the annual program FriFormA\V – KUD Mreža and the annual Cirkulacija2 program.

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Presented works

Anna Lerchbaumer – A set of mating connectors

Power adapters become instruments. The electromagnetic field is translated to sound by copper coils. A leftover part of high-end ventilator swings over the power supply units and creates a slow rhythmic pattern of the consumed energy. The wall outlet is the most common female connector.

Conny Zenk – Driving on the Ether Wave

“Driving on the Ether Wave” works with sounds of electromagnetic fields of the city, which are outside the audible range. By means of self-built coils and a mobile field-recording setup, recordings are made from the movement of driving.
The structure of the route travelled forms the starting point for the audio-visual composition.

Hui Ye – Homemade Music Video #02

HD video with sound, colour, 26 min 09 sec | 2021  

Homemade Music Video is a series of audio interventions and live sound performances developed in the different areas of the artist’s home during a self-isolating period of the pandemic. Via online TTS (Text-to-Speech) program, speeches generated by AI-based voice synthesis are being transformed into compositional material in which both linguistic as well as phonetic features of the speeches have become a crucial component of the soundscape.

Nika Erjavec – Collison

In the interactive installation, the material markers of our subject and living culture are intertwined; electronic toy components, consumables and vegetation are collected in overgrown urban areas (third landscape areas). These areas have a common withdrawal of man, which they either neglect, forget or fence in anticipation of capital investment. Indigenous, pioneering and invasive species germinate in human absence, working together to create complex and biologically diverse ecosystems. Using the remote control, we suddenly cut into the sonic landscape of the gallery and trigger vibrations that cause chaotic body movements. At the weakest points of objects, vibrations overtake communication between the eyes and the brain, thus eluding our ability to decipher and understand the image. Working through stimulating changes and humorous-banal combinations, he thematizes the hyper-object (T. Morton) dimension of the socio-environmental crisis and anomalies of our current way of production, living and dealing with problems.

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Curatorial team: Urška Preis with the help of Saša Nemec, Lučka Zajc, Anja Seničar, Eva Jus  and Martina Jurak

Technical support: Borut Savski, Stefan Doepner and the Cirkulacija2 team

Photo and Video: Nina Pernat and Martina Jurak

Design of the poster and graphic design: Urška Preis

Contacts for media and press: Saša Nemec, rdece.zore@gmail.com

Financial support  by the City of Ljubljana and the Ministry of Culture Slovenia and Radio Študent.

Financial support for the Feminism is taking over the City!: Anna Lerchbaumer, Conny Zenk, Hui Ye and Nika Erjavec: Austrian Kultur Forum

 

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Important

With the Ordinance on Interim Measures for the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases COVID-19, which entered into force on 21 February 2022, the Government is also releasing restrictions on cultural activities and the collective exercise of religious freedom. All temporary epidemiological restrictions on the provision of cultural events and other cultural services and on the collective exercise of religious freedom have ceased to apply. Preventive hygiene measures remain crucial. More on gov.si.

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Donations

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