Schlosspost Web Residents #3

Akademie Schloss Solitude has awarded Schlosspost web residencies for the third time. The call on the topic »SUPRAINFINIT: L’Avenir Redux« was curated and juried by art collective and former Solitude fellows Apparatus 22. In this round, 117 applications reached the jurors from all over the world. After discussing them over and again it proved impossible to solve the dilemma of whom to leave out, so, in the end, they decided to have four winners instead of three. In this post you’ll find the concepts of the four new web residents – who will work on their projects for four weeks (until Dec. 1 2016), posting articles regularly or reporting on the steps to their final piece – as well as the jury’s statement:

»We must confess that going through all the applications took us more time and demanded more concentration than expected. There were not only the proposals but also the sometimes very consistent portfolios, and countless links to videos, documentation of performances etc – we really wanted to properly analyze them all.

We are grateful for all the applicants that took time to react to our call and send in proposals. There were quite a few directions: from proposals for all sorts of various archives drawing from unexpected sources for and about the future to proposals for systems building limitations for SUPRAINFINIT, from pure utopian projects to projects still very much based in urgent issues of the day. There were also some a bit too much in symmetry with our ways of doing things – we are not against methods generally, but we definitely don’t preach people to emulate our voices.

We were ready to give a carte blanche for a great idea even if the applicant didn’t have a proper portfolio or experience in art, but it was not the case.

After we chose and discussed a first set of 13 projects on the short list, we felt that four projects were clearly the strongest. The decision was narrowed to ideas contouring something we hadn’t thought of before or to aesthetic explorations that would add an extra layer to how we imagine SUPRAINFINIT taking shape; the portfolios also weighted in the final choices.

Discussions over and again; it proved impossible to solve the dilemma of whom to leave out and in the end we decided to have four winners instead of three for this round of the web residency.«

Megan Snowe – »See attachment«

Attachment is an essential type of bond between material, immaterial, and post-material that can transcend the infinite, even if for an instant. Throughout the month of November 2016, web resident Megan Snowe – chosen by Apparatus 22 for the third call for Schlosspost web residencies on the topic »SUPRAINFINIT: L’Avenir redux« – will compose a series of animated gif texts that illustrate attachment in a post-everything world aching with possibility, a SUPRAINFINIT. In the world you sit in now attachment is typically a sense of connection or moderate possession between two or more points, but social geometry functions in a different way when we go over the infinite. In that place, what is an attachment’s texture, substance, speed, rate of undulation? – More about this project.

»Sometimes one just gets to read an excellent piece of speculative writing – fresh, concentrated, and provocative. Such was the case of Megan’s proposal. To take a ubiquitous, yet overlooked, detail with countless reverberations in so many aspects of our lives, – the attachment – and promise to turn it into a subject of reflection within a new mind-frame was something that got us excited. Always adding, opening for more or expanding, in equilibrium or not with its carrier, the attachment will get dissected raw and poetic.«

– Apparatus 22

Paul Simon Richards – »Quasi-Monte Carlo«

Quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) is an algorithm used in photo-realistic CGI rendering as well as artificial intelligence. It is a digital means of producing sense. QMC is a controlled form of randomness, built from vast probability trees, incorporating every possible outcome in a given situation. It was devised by French statisticians in the 19th century working in Monaco, who operated a gambling syndicate, aiming to win at roulette. I am producing an episodic video work for online dissemination, which draws from QMC’s foundational concepts: randomisation and repetition. During the Schlosspost residency, Paul Simon Richards will produce a new chapter of his ongoing video series Quasi-Monte Carlo and an online essay which relates to Quasi-Monte Carlo, intimacy and imagination. He will post images throughout the residency, which relate to the process of making the works. The project page will be online soon here. – More about this project.

»The mysterious-sounding Quasi-Monte Carloproposal by Paul Simon Richards pours in the mix randomization and repetition via perspectives coming from 19th century knowledge of statistics and further via CGI, and maybe some of his intense hybrid of cutting-edge & vintage video aesthetics. All of these in order to articulate the potentiality of inwardness as protagonist. A liquidized gaze on desire and intimacy manifest in the future – we hope he will turn it into a mesmerizing inception for the politics of dreams in SUPRAINFINIT.«

– Apparatus 22

Polly Gregson – »Future Relics Catalogue #1«

»Future Relics: Catalogue#1« is the Web Residency project by writer and artist Polly Gregson who was selected for the third »Schlosspost Web Residencies«, curated by Apparatus 22 on the topic »SUPRAINFINIT: L’Avenir redux«.
During November 2016, Polly Gregson will compile a catalogued collection, consisting of fabricated primary and secondary sources from alternative futures, strung together with the narrative presence of an archivist suspended somewhere in SUPRAINFINIT. The futures presented will draw on current plausibilities, from climate change to mass genocide, disease to technological dictatorship, and will exist alongside contemporary projections and statistics. – More about this project.

»There were a few applicants proposing various ideas around personal archives or different concatenations of ideas, news, feelings, dreams and daydreams. We ended up choosing this one both for the proposal and the strength of the portfolio. The writing of Polly Gregson is forward thinking and has the punch of something essential; and we love the cues she is taking – maybe just intuitively – from diagrammatic writing when it comes to the aesthetics of the text. Her insights into the rural life – something we (Apparatus 22) are almost totally alienated from – proved to be a plus. We are looking forward to discovering what this biographical detail would inscribe into her perspectives on the future.«

– Apparatus 22

Haseeb Ahmed – »Vortex-Faced Being Speaks«

If wind is air moving, air is made in part of oxygen, and as this call justly proclaims, »hope is the new oxygen,« then we may ask, what are those unseen narratives carried by the wind? During this residency those questions can be directed to the face of the wind itself, we call it the Vortex-Faced Being. Using a delta wing model in a wind tunnel we have been able to visualize the face of the wind. It was first uncovered at the NATO-von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics by Wind Egg experiment researchers. Over the last three years we have taught it rudimentary language using a specially designed python computer program. The lessons included Latin, emoticons, modernist poetry (especially that of Daniil Kharms), and periodic live typing. Now we can retrofit this program as an interface and communicate with the face. What metaphors does the wind carry?

During his online residency period at Schlosspost, Haseeb Ahmed will create a narrative told from the standpoint of the wind itself through a series of weekly text and image posts as well as longer video work. Ahmed has created an apparatus by which its face can be conjured up in a wind tunnel and the lab reports of this experiment will also be shared. – More about this project.

»Less structured as proposal, Vortex-Faced Space Being totally makes sense when one delves into the vast and sophisticated web of references from science, various spiritual movements or beliefs of extinct societies Haseeb Ahmed employs in his practice. An incision in disbelief regarding science and beyond, Vortex-Faced Space Being could be a potent outlook for knowledge propagated through things and phenomena very few are capable of (substantially) grasping.«

– Apparatus 22