Science Fiction - Social Fiction

Science fiction uses present and past circumstances as a starting point in order to address and reflect on problem areas of the present in the form of future reality scenarios. Social fiction uses the utopian in a similar way and with an incomparable intention.

Andrei Siclodi, former employee of the Schwaz City Gallery and current director of the Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen in Innsbruck, was responsible for the board of trustees. Based on these considerations, the exhibition Science Fiction - Social Fiction presented different artistic positions that reflected this basic mood in their works. Multimedia, interactive installations, Internet-based computer work, photo prints and a video were on display.

Niels Bonde (Denmark)

Stuffed animals, sneakers, cakes with antennas and built-in radio transmitters, a cactus with a video camera, etc. in a replica living room designed a space for the artists and visitors to monitor. The artist stated: "Most of us share a vague fear of new technologies because we can't read them. We don't really know what happens when the credit card disappears into the machine and if you're a little unsure, you soon have the feeling that things are against you. I'm trying to show a reversed version of that uneasiness, a paranoid feeling that things, the table, the bin, the shoes are watching and listening to us."

Erik Hobijn (Netherlands)

Parasites live and feed at the expense of other living beings. Techno-parasites also use any technical system, its energy supplies and cycles to reproduce and grow. Erik Hobijn deals with the development of prototypes of such systems on the assumption that a technologically structured world, like nature, can only function ecologically if it is populated by parasites. An Internet terminal was installed in the exhibition, where visitors could find out about the morphology and way of life of techno-parasites.

Markus Käch (Switzerland)

Käch is the founder and director of the Institute for Media Diseases, whose areas of responsibility include the 'detection, treatment and rehabilitation of software-damaged body parts and skin surfaces'. The object of investigation of the fictitious institute was not the real body, but the telematic body existing in the computer and network. Based on the pathology model, the Institute's work has created an archive of the manifestations and symptoms of media-related illnesses. A medical display with images of media illnesses was installed in the exhibition.

Patricia Piccinini (Australia)

Since 1994, Piccinini's company TMGP (The Mutant Genome Project) has been offering genetically modified children (LUMP - Life with Uninvolved Mutant Properties), which can be formed according to the specifications of the parents (who are willing to buy): with two or more eyes, with or without arms, ears and hands, male, female or asexual etx. The biological qualities of these children - generally resistant to disease, pre-education in the fetal developmental stage - allow for maximum efficient performance. The gallery presented TMGP products for the first time in Europe.

Pictorial Heroes (England)

Doug Aubrey and Alan Robertson presented the film Work, Rest & Pay, a virtual road movie. During the computer game, the protagonist Frank is transferred to a landscape that he drives around in a car and that gives rise to reflections on his own existence. Social misery and high-tech systems intertwine to form a reality picture of contemporary life.

Text: Andrea Hörl

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