‘Polsima’ by Olivia Abächerli 

‘Polsima’ by Olivia Abächerli 

25.09.19 - 25.11.19 at M8 Art Space

“We will be able to calculate the future outcome of every tiny decision we take today. We will be able to form the society and the planet we want. Would you like to be part of this movement?” 

Polsima, the political-simulator machine, is a highly complex device that can calculate and visually simulate all the future consequences of any political decision. The algorithm is shaped by scientists from all possible disciplines and promises to end political speculations, so finally politics can not fail any more.

This product’s dream-like handicraft and intimate aesthetics soon intertwines with our personal affections at some unnoticed yet undeniable point. There is an inherent horror in the prediction of complex networks of causal events with absurdity always looming close, despite its initial intentions will ‚polsima‘ fulfill a utopian purpose or operate as an object of desire and a neoliberal instrument of power.

‘Polsima’ by Olivia Abächerli is the first project launching the new screening programme ‘Dialogue Model: I can’t hear myself without you listening’ for M8 Art Space curated by Edel O’ Reilly.

Artist:

Olivia Abächerli is researching the political potential of “intimate fiction”, practicing proto-archaeological fieldwork, and examining where the utopic tilts into the dystopic, or vice versa. Do the practice of speculation and the art’s mobilisation of affect have a possible political leverage? Proceeding from drawing as a tool of invention, projects develop into more complex narratives, a practice of layering film and animation, abstract organisational forms or support structures. Used media are often simultaneously analog and digital, e.g. coding, metal, plasticine, internet radio, wood and plants. In 2018, she was awarded the Unterwaldner Preis für bildende Kunst. Abächerli has exhibited in project spaces in Athens (GRC) or Arnhem (NL) and in various spaces in Switzerland, e.g. Museum Langmatt (Baden), Kunsthalle Luzern, Nidwaldner Museum, Kunsthaus Langenthal or Shedhalle Zug.

List of works:

Screen 1 ‘The corporation’ 2019. Video with audio (02:46) 

Screen 2 ‘The event chain’ 2019. Video (07:24) 

Screen 3 ‘The simulation’ 2019. Video (06:22)

Screen 4 ‘The dream’ 2019. Video with audio (10:12)

‘Dialogue Model: I can’t hear myself without you listening’ 

Olivia Abächerli, Bethany Crawford, Lukas Malte Hoffmann, Amanda Rice & Assem A. Hendawi

‘Dialogue Model: I can’t hear myself without you listening’ is an extended exhibition over four screenings at M8 Art Space featuring adapted projects by four international artists. Commencing in September 2019 and running until December 2020, it shares screen-based artistic research into the philosophical and existential aspects of various developments in the field of electrical engineering such as digital immortality, human-computer interaction, empathic interfaces and algorithmic governance. While the format of the programme is a sequence of multi-channel works by each artist, it is intended as a one extended project with the context and sensibility of each of the screenings interlacing. These feedback loops trace lines of tactile thinking with our simulated selves, synaptic scripts and speculative scenarios.

For further information contact Curator Edel O' Reilly ([email protected])