#cyber-rituals @hyper-self
2022
installation
two videos, one on flatscreen tv, one on iphone x, inflatable sculptures, metal chain, augmented reality filter accessible through a phone on site + qr code to take home
“#cyber-rituals @hyper-self”
curated by Martina Menegon & Brooklyn J. Pakathi
Kargl Permanent, Vienna, AT
The exhibition “TRANS.. #cyber-rituals @hyper-self” transforms the offline gallery space into an experience of simulated identities and rituals of self-representation. It creates a window into the constructing and reconstructive nature of the self and of the internet while establishing rituals, conceptions and unrepressed basis for the performance of the self.
The contemporary experience of the digital has inevitably changed our perception and conception of reality, enhancing the concept of performance in relation to the self and the body. Since its early days, the internet has been a space for construction and reconstruction of the self, an environment free from physical limits that allows an unprecedented play with past and new identities.
Online, the self becomes de-centred and multiplies without restrictions and in which social media has transformed into a virtual stage, where the diversity of new approaches to performance investigates and reshapes, mainly, the relation between reality and simulation, but also code and body and the very perception of the self through its digital double(s).
Hannah Neckel’s multimedia “XXXperiences” seduce viewers into a hyper-space, merging net-first visual cultures with the physical. Her use of symbols, text, 3D renderings and an arsenal of other tools and references propose a utopian internet, where the self is constructed, reconstructed and then open to a further unpacking by viewers of her work. The range of hand-crafted inflatables mediates between various states of reality, abstracting aesthetics as a means to perceive lived experiences both online and away from the keyboard. For “TRANS.. #cyber-rituals @hyper-self”, Neckel also augments form and material by extending into the virtual and altering the public offline space nearby.
Text by Martina Menegon & Brooklyn J. Pakathi
Photos by Maria Belova