#Vaporfolk: Ritualistic Workshops & Global Materials

Since 2013 #Vaporfolk has been the means by which Peter Moosgaard has collected ritual appropriations and subversive imitations of technology and products of mass consumption. In a society that is submerged by the artifacts that result from constant technological innovation, the mimicry at work in #Vaporfolk establishes the comforting commercial object as the ultimate symbol, a symbol of power, class and lifestyle. The archive develops a speculative future, in which electronic devices have become fossils, brands have evolved into totems, and consumer goods are replicated for ceremonial purposes. Our present usage of commodities and tech-products is mirrored in this anthropocenic scenario, as if our daily experience with a modern world had more of a cultish than rational nature. Soon #Vaporfolk archive attracted a community of 3000 followers, connecting artists from around the world, resulting in a collective, which proposed ritualistic workshops to each other. These manuals involving global materials included: making archaic weapons from packaging, brewing organic DIY coca cola, forging smartphones from driftwood and building totems from corporate waste. These manuals would be submitted by artists worldwide as rituals and performed collectively under the hashtag #vaporfolk. The term »vapor« refers to the global cloud sphere into which ideas are uploaded, to then materialize in remote manufacturing facilities. The genre »folk« locates artifacts of this nebulous production process in a local and social fabric. The manuals become a ceremonial strategy against increasing »vaporization« of the material/natural world and our alienation from it.

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