Systems Research Group, 11th-13th of March 2022
Running on fumes. You might know the feeling. Head and body fucked by years of zombie overexertion. You don’t have time to notice the gradual degradation of the world around you, when every waking moment is so F u c k i n g U r g e n t. None of us had time, in the end. We’re all in this ~together~, so we didn’t notice the degradation ~together~ and now we’re here ~together~, on the precipice of imminent collapse.
Toes on the ground, heel bouncing at blastbeat tempo. Tapping my fingernails on the rectangular relief of my phone through the trouser pocket.
In quiet moments, the phantom muscle tremor in my top right thigh almost feels like some unconscious desire for some, any, kind of notification. A server down in the datacenter. 2 for 1 curry Thursdays. National emergency system nuclear alert. All have the same register. All make the same bzz bzz.
We get half-cocked perpetual maintenance. The maintenance budget of our little experiment seems to slip lower down the sheets every year. So we’re panicking, blinkered, plugged, shaving, sweating, twitching, sliding slowly into ruins, again.
Systems Research Group is an interdisciplinary organization founded in Berlin in 2018. Research threads for Q1 2022 are: ◘ strategic fictionalization of ecosystems ◘ destruction of goods and property ◘ reverse-engineering as praxis ◘ soft resistance strategies to soft power ◘ environmental climate controls ◘ practical attacks against AI-informed facial recognition technologies. See https://systemsresearch.group/ for further information.
Adrenal Fatigue, exhibition view
Invasive Species/Icons: People, 2022 Acrylic on inkjet prints, frame. 510 x 610 (mm)
Adrenal Fatigue, exhibition view
Adrenal Fatigue, exhibition view
Desktop Fire 01, 2022 Enamel and inkjet print on aluminium, frame. 420 x 520 (mm)
Adrenal Fatigue, exhibition view
Effigy/Laptop/Tools, 2022 Tape, graphite and stickers on inkjet prints, frame. 514 x 414 (mm)
Damage patterns, 2022 Pencil on paper, inkjet print, sticker, tape. 510 x 410 (mm)
Spalarnia, 26th-27th of November 2021
GUTS is very pleased to present a concert of spalarnia, a music and poetry alias of Wojciech Kosma.
spalarnia is a promiscuous blend of hypnotic, darkly melodic sound, auto-tuned poetry, intimate performance and earnest dissent against the exclusionary and violent politics of the authoritarian government of Wojciech’s native Poland. At times spalarnia sounds like new-old folk, at times like slowed-down pop, hedonistic protest song or fucked-up religious meditation, all making a stage for gently sung poems in Polish that move between telling utopian stories from a nonfascist future to reimagining pleasure, sensuality and closeness as forms of resistance and meaning-making. spalarnia will play a live set followed by an informal conversation about the poems’ translations and their context, especially the ongoing refugee crisis on the Belarusian-Polish border.
Wojciech Kosma is a performance artist known for staging nuanced representations of intimate relationships that wove together dance, theatre, and personal biographies. More recently, since moving back to Poland, Wojciech works with music and poetry under an alias spalarnia. spalarnia’s performances have been presented at Tate Modern in London, The Island Club in Limassol or Komuna Warszawa in Warsaw. spalarnia’s tapes are released on Dym Recordings in Poland. Wojciech is a founding member of the artist collective East London Cable.
Aristilde Kirby – Die Butterfly Die, 26th of September 2021
Act I, Scene III: Lyco meets Gran Arbolyn.
On September 16th 2021, The New York Times published an article entitled If You See This Beautiful Insect Please Kill It, or Die, Beautiful Spotted Lanternfly, Die. I saw it the day it was published, & it immediately pinched a nerve concerning thoughts I had about the supposed human nature of “invasive species,” a concept I was introduced to while learning about plants as a Master Gardener. The spotted lanternfly is said to have consequence, especially in regard to climate change.
This is the second performance in a series I call Shadow Install, which are shadow plays which arc towards parables. They utilize the silhouettes behind a backlit screen in dialogue & action, which usually leads to drama. Die Butterfly Die, or The Butterfly The, is a meditation on life in the midst of so much death, natural & unnatural, logical & illogical during our time. It is about the interconnectedness of fates as sentient beings. As a brief intermission between two acts, I will be reading a bit of my own poetry. Om mani padme hum.
performed at GUTS Art Space, 26th of September
Top view of spotted lantern fly, Chester County, Pennsylvania
Aristilde Kirby (she/they, b. 1991) is a poet, like the play of the ripples on the water. Daisy & Catherine², her latest chapbook, is out in October via Auric Press. Past works include Daisy & Catherine (Belladonna, 2017) & Sonnet Infinitesimal / Material Girl (Black Warrior Review & Best American Experimental Writing 2020). She is presently featured in Artforum & Illiberal Arts at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, curated by Kerstin Stakemeier & Anselm Franke. She has a Master of Fine Arts degree in Writing from Bard College. You can just call her Aris, like Paris without the P.
Act I, Scene II: Lyco & Fürstinne listen to the philosophy of Dan-Di.
Aris reads Entropics / Entities from Daisy & Catherine2
Tarik Hayward – Serial Dilution, 16th-19th of September 2021
Pure Life, 2021, plastic container, water extracted from pig blood, variable size.
Tarik Hayward’s work starts with technical research, a form of primitive engineering, an architecture of necessity for which the materials, and structural principles that bind them, express a logic of their own.
Hayward stages natural processes, resonating with a multitude of strong, culturally connoted images. The work “pure life”, named after water sold by the multinational corporation Nestle, presented in banal PET bottles was inspired by Hayward’s dialogue with Ariana Reines. After reading his horoscope, Reines challenged Hayward to make a piece with water. The liquid inside the bottles, called H2O, is pure, but the filiation of its content (completely harmless and drinkable) leads us straight into the slaughterhouses.
To frame the scenery, the artist draws a copper barrier called “drop shadow” whose dissolution -corroded by water- has already begun.
Terms such as “dark” or “dystopian” might be called to mind. But this depends on the view taken of the world. Anyone disappointed by roses, growth, and wealth accumulation can also see Hayward’s work as a form of release from that continuous stagnation called progress.
Tarik Hayward (*1979 in Ibiza) Lives and works in La Vallée de Joux (CH)
Recent solo shows include Archifossile at Cima Norma art Foundation in Ticino, 2021; Resolutions: Zero. Hopes: Zero. at the Centre Cultrel Suisse Paris; Neutral Density at the Musée cantonal des beaux-arts, Lausanne, 2017.
Tarik Hayward’s works were awarded the Swiss Art Awards in 2018; the Swiss Award for Performance, Kunstraum, Baden in 2012; the Irène Reymond Award in 2014; and the Accrochage Vaud Award in 2016.
He was also the 2019 Studio Resident of Pro Helvetia in Beijing.
Tarik Hayward, with Ariana Reines, edition Periferia & Swiss Art Council, 54 pages, 2019.
Serial Dilution, exhibition view.
Serial Dilution, exhibition view.
Drop Shadow, 2021, corroded copper, size variable.
Serial Dilution, exhibition view.
