Activation #5
Unpacking our Library
Saturday, May 6, 19:30
The fifth Unpacking our Library activation departs from the practice with and against archives of artist Eli Cortiñas. Cortiñas’ lecture performance ‘I’d Blush if I Could’ questions the gender bias of contemporary digital archives and it tackles the increasing feminisation of technology through devices like voice-activated systems and other forms of artificial intelligence. Navigating archival footage and different audio-visual imagery surrounding various sentient beings (humanoid robots, voice activated systems, chat bots, gynomorphic and zoomorphic social devices),the artist experiments with critical uses of archival and found footage, drawn from the generic images of commercial platforms. Through interventions into such neo-liberal archival vessels, Cortiñas’ artistic practice reveals something ominous at play -simulations, power, surveillance-, while also stimulating ways to de-center and shape-shift their hegemonic prerogatives.
Eli Cortiñas, Walls Have Feelings, 2019, video still.