With the first edition of LIMINAL, Festival of Art, Science & Technology we explored how can we live the unlivable, the overwhelming everyday by thinking about more authentic forms of the oh-yeah GOOD LIFE. For this year’s edition we wish to wander through the UNSEEN, that which happens behind our not so watchful eyes when computers transform reality into digital flesh. Convincingly transportive, machines thrust our sense of inner reality into the realm of the anxious, the psychoactive esoteric space against which we find our thoughts imprecise and baffled. For lack of a better word, we timidly labelled that side of knowledge as ‘occult’ or workings of magic. From the LSD infused beginnings of cyber utopianism, to the second hand spiritualities of wondering techies in search for optimal maximization (of their own being and of their new toys) magic and occultism have been intimately intertwined with technology. And now that the world renders itself unavailable to our minds and human sensibilities, by way of stochastic enhancement and algorithmic discretization, we often times fail to see where magic ends and control begins. Could we align to a new, repurposing of spirituality and ways of exploring the occult imagination as they reveal new ways of enchanting our lives? And when magicians and artists work together could magic become a form of weaponized hacking against control?
Taking place during Liminal, this worksop by Bonjour Monde invites anyone working or not in computer related fields to discover the erratic and subversive logic of the virus and let their practices contaminated by it. The virus awakes in us a fear of intrusion, a fear of watching, helpless, the slow degeneration of our operating system. But for some, this fear is tempered by fascination. Viruses carry an implication of the abysses of the Internet, mimicking strange mythical creatures or copying the propagation methods of certain worms, hiding under the swarming mass of our data to appear one day, activated by the innocent tip of our cursor. Bonjour Monde invite practitioners working across art, technology, science, sound, design, or any other field or discipline to let their work affected by viral methods and in the process discover the surprising creative potential they hold within. By the end of the session processes can be invented as well as projects or recipes, even new types of viruses can be imagined.
We welcome any form of creative production. The goal is to confront practices that are not considered to be computer-related, with these strange life forms that are electronic viruses. So yeah, writers, painters, designers, carpenter, everyone is welcome. If you wish to participate, drop us an email at sub@liminal.ro
The workshop will be followed by a public lecture on Wednesday, June 19th, starting 7pm.
Biography
Bonjour Monde
Created in 2015, Bonjour Monde is a research group for alternative processes in the field of visual creation. Their approach leads to question tools, software and hardware, to open and understand them in order to divert them from their initial function in an infinite search for noise, error and happy accidents. Each project, software or tool is tested through workshops and events, putting sharing and transmission at the heart of their practice. With each new idea and workshop, they bring a new look based on curiosity, sometimes naivety and often humour, to go beyond the surface of things, always outside our comfort zone. This attitude places them between the circles of graphic design and art, responding to the needs of others and creating for purely personal expression.