#c0da comptoir #fanny carolsruh
Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe
21.6.-1.9.2024
https://www.badischer-kunstverein.de/index.php?Direction=Programm&Detail=999/
-- scroll down for images and reviews --
.
Press Text:
At the Badischer Kunstverein, Katrin Mayer presents her current artistic and research project c0da, an investigation of the female history of computer programming and writing that situates them in a complex relationship to the Fächerstadt (‘fan shaped city’) of Karlsruhe as a technology centre.
In her site-specific practice, Mayer proposes feminist correctives to existing historiography; for example, the technology of programming was a female activity, especially in its early days, yet the achievements of women are hardly ever mentioned. c0da interweaves the stories of pioneering programmers such as Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, or Betty Snyder Holberton from ENIAC 6 with a herstory of writing. With l’écriture féminine and the figure of the zerological subject as points of departure, c0da interrogates these writing traditions in relation to artificial intelligence and new writing programs such as Chat GPT. Artists, theoreticians, curators and writers from Mayer’s interdisciplinary network have been invited to collaboratively reflect on the researches and to submit their own contributions on https://www.c0da.org/ – an ongoing platform developed with Anna Cairns and published in 2022.
At the Kunstverein, c0da will be transferred to an exhibition space for the first time and supplemented by an additional narrative: Mayer creates a speculative rereading of the standard creation myth of the ‘fan shaped’ city Karlsruhe, according to which Margrave Karl Wilhelm dreamt of a fan and resolved to orient the layout of his palace and city to this radial motif. Mayer takes the German word Fächer (fan in English) quite literally: in British English, the term ‘fanny’ is a slang expression for vulva. During the 18th and 19th centuries, moreover, the fan was a telegraphic tool, part of the basic equipment of bodies that were coded as feminine, and was scenarized in literature and art as an instrument of emancipatory and subversive communication.
#c0da comptoir #fanny carolsruh delineates constructive and conceptual lines between the history of women in technology and the rather maledominated, technocratic Fächerstadt of Karlsruhe. As an additional contextualizing level, Mayer has installed individual pre-existing works in the third cabinet and in the Waldstraßensaal, which are assigned the status of analogue archival avatars.
The exhibition is accompanied by a program of events and a publication.
c0da contributors: Anna Cairns, Ann-Kathrin Eickhoff, Sophia Eisenhut, Rike Frank, Jackie Grassmann, Sarah Lehnerer, Hanne Loreck, Jasmina Metwaly, Karolin Meunier, Eva Meyer, Luzie Meyer, 0rphan Drift & Ido Radon, Sadie Plant, Romy Nína Rüegger, Bea Schlingelhoff, Eske Schlüters, Andrea Scrima, Jana Seehusen, Stanton Taylor, Rebekka Wilkens
.
Reviews:
(see images attached, scroll down)
-Felix Vogel, (RE)WRITING CODE(S), Texte zur Kunst, 23.8.2024:
https://www.textezurkunst.de/de/articles/felix-vogel-katrin-mayer-rewriting-codes/
-Philippe Régnier, Katrin Mayer: féminisme contextuel à Karlsruhe, The Art Newspaper, 24.7.2024: https://www.artnewspaper.fr/2024/07/24/katrin-mayer-feminisme-contextuel-a-karlsruhe/
-Lain Ocean, Tab Type Return Make Subject, Spike Art Magazine 80, Summer 24
-Lea Binsfeld, Feminismus in der Fächerstadt, Missy Magazine, 4/2024
-Carmela Thiele, Künstlerin dechiffriert das Büro, Badische Neueste Nachrichten, 21.6.2024
und: hhttps://www.riffreporter.de/de/wissen/cyberfeminismus-kunst-frauen-code-programmieren-technologie/
-Chris Gerbing, Eine feministisch gelesene Geschichte des Internets, Rheinpfalz, 24.6.2024
.
Photos: Heiko Karn
