To mark the opening of the festival ‘A Matter of (In)digestions‘, we organized a weekend of events at PuntWG bringing together artist Céline Mathieu, Toon Fibbe & Laura Wiedijk, and Maxim Tyminko. In the months prior, the artists also developed online works that (links below in this page).

 

About the artists

Toon Fibbe’s work deals with metaphors, ghostly and monstrous ones in particular, employed to understand economy – both current and throughout history. It departs from the idea that political economy has always shared an affinity with the ghastly, which is visible for instance in a metaphor like the invisible hand of Adam Smith, but also in the writing of Marx. The driving force of his practice lies in the thinking, writing, acting, and enacting of characters. This activity spawns through objects, texts, and dialogues, and usually takes shape in the form of texts and performances, either in front of a camera or live.

In various media, Céline Mathieu mingles linguistic and bodily sensibilities with an element of play. Often executed in temporary solid materials (from performance to plasticine sculptures), she is interested in what can not quite be pinpointed. Fluid modes of production (hypnosis), appropriations from the semi-scientific field attribute to a reading experience that is both conceptual and sensory. Changing states of being and a feeling of ‘falling away’ wire through all the pieces. The context in which the work is shown strongly directs her practice, which is emphasized by the way elements of display and textual components of the exhibition are incorporated as cohesive parts of the work. Recurring elements are a glass of water, a novel, and tactile surfaces. Céline Mathieu has presented her work at MKHA Antwerp, Corridor Amsterdam, CLAPTRAP Antwerp, Museum M Leuven, Antwerp Art Weekend, New York Fashion Week, Vooruit Gent, La Virreina Barcelona, Extra City, AIR Antwerpen. An important part of her work is rooted in her performance duo CMMC, a collaboration with Myrthe van der Mark.

Maxim Tyminko graduated from the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne in 2005. He is a co-founder of pxFlux –– an online platform for the exhibition, promotion, distribution and collection of time-based, digital art, based in Amsterdam & Berlin (2017). He is also a co-founder of ‘Your Favorites’ (2005) and Bolek & Lolek (1997) art groups. He is an author of Bolek & Lolek Cosmos Constructor Manifesto LINK (2006) and opera-lecture Projector (2016). His opera project Beguiling Orpheus (2006, together with Gleb Choutov and Maja Ilic) received a Nam June Paik Promotional Award of the Art Foundation NRW. He has also curated a number of exhibitions, among them are: –o-l-o-g-y (2012, Amstel 41 Gallery in Amsterdam) and a multimedia retrospective project Zbor. Belarusian Art Movement (presented in Kiev in 2016 and in Minsk in 2018).

Wiedijk plays in her installations and inkjet prints with common presentation formats from the advertising world, such as posters and displays. She sees her work as a praise of all artificial ploys, a celebration of the exuberant and the splendid. The colourful, often particularly detailed posters draw the viewer into a wondrous, kaleidoscopic universe. Laura Wiedijk graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 2010, and participated in residency programs such as WIELS (Brussels) and FABRIK culture (Hegenheim).

Drawing on the phenomena of online communities driven by erotic fantasies, on homeopathic practices, and on algorithmic calculations at machinic speed, the artists in this exhibition invite us to reflect on consumption in relation to fluid and more volatile objects such as songs, beliefs, desires, or data. How do these objects change and evolve over time? How do they consume and move from place to mind, from mind to space?

 

During the opening evening, Maxim Tyminko presented his performance Drum-n-Pix, Pixeltrance or Expressionistic Minimalism on a Sub-pixel Level, in which he delves into Vernor Vinge’s utopian/dystopian concept of technological singularity: a moment when machine intelligence surpasses the cognitive capacities of the human brain. Exploring the process of digesting visual data, the piece is an inquiry into the logic behind A.I. image analysis that evolves into a psychedelic experience of repetitive rhythmic audiovisual patterns.

 

In their sound installation,To Stick My Head Into Your Mouth and Lick Your Tongue, Toon Fibbe & Laura Wiedijk elaborate on the phenomenon of Vorarephilia: the desire and fetish of being swallowed up in one piece. Unable to fulfill such a desire, vorarephiles perform their fantasy by way of collective fiction. Bewitched by fear and excitement, a question arises: Is the desire to dissolve into something larger than oneself a form of surrender, or is it a courageous attempt to oppose the pervasive force of hyper-individualism?

 

Alluding in her title to the process of diluting a substance in a homeopathic preparation, Céline Mathieu presents 7 CH (Airwaves, Person, Flowers, Homeopathy, Technics SL-1200, Test Press of ‘Blusens Fasong’ by Gaute Granli): a series of liminal gestures that explore, through sound and space interventions, the invisible ‘effect’ of the act of feeding – be it mind or space.