About Chimera Cyborgs:
Performative actions with fantasy monsters that are developed in an art-lab through analog, and digital crafting. Chimera Cyborgs is A psychedelic art project that explores FR-technology, shapeshifting the borderland Between the Private and Public SELF
In Swedish:
PROJEKTBESKRIVING
Performativa aktioner med fantasimonster som utvecklas i ett konstlabb genom analog/digital slöjd. Ett psykedeliskt posthumanistiskt konstprojekt som undersöker FR teknologins förskjutningar i gränslandet mellan det offentliga och privata jaget. En synvilla som distraherar tech & utmanar konformism.
VEM HAR COPYRIGHT PÅ DITT FACE?
Temat är Face Recognition, vilket på svenska kan översättas till automatiserad ansiktsigenkänning, kopplat till begreppet övervakningskapitalism (se Shoshana Zuboffs kritik av Surveillance Captialism). FR-system implementeras på allt fler områden t ex i hemteknologi som Google Home, övervakningskameror på institutioner och i offentliga rum. De har blivit en del av vår vardag. Vår angelägenhet ligger i hur dessa system tycks begränsa uttrycksfrihet på ett sätt som framöver kan leda till kollektiva beteendeförändringar och social konformism.
Konst och kultur kommer troligtvis att påverkas i takt med att individen/människor i samhället alltmer behöver förhålla sig till teknologi som gör intrång på den privata sfären och det sociala samspelet. Vi vill undersöka hur dessa samhällsfenomen kan komma att påverka konst, design och mode, i hur vi skyddar/utsmyckar kroppen. Hur kan vi skydda oss och bevara vår integritet när vi själva vill och väljer det? Kommer det i överhuvudtaget att gå? Och hur kan konsten bidra i denna förändringsprocess?
Detta dilemma tacklas genom att vi koreograferar en alternativ agens. Utgångspunkten är att laborera kring termen CHIMERA. Chimera är en mytisk/fiktiv varelse, ett fantasimonster som kan beskrivas bestå av disparata delar som komponeras till en ny imaginativ skapelse. Inom biologin är det en organism uppbyggd av celler från minst två olika arter.
Stilgreppet vi applicerar är campy art. CAMP är likt termen UNCANNY VALLEY inom tech konst som väcker ambivalens hos betraktaren. Något som verkar bekant men också absurt, skrattretande, flamboyant, impertinent, groteskt eller tom motbjudande. Utifrån Donna Haraway’s definition av cyborg som en varelse i en ”post-gender world”, i kombo med chimera, bygger vi således en queerifierad maskering kopplat till agens. Ordet chimär förknippas ofta med något orimligt i negativ bemärkelse, medan vi istället uppfångar en potential. Vi ser i detta en posthumanistisk utmaning där vi avsiktligt positionerar oss i ett liminalt gränsland mellan binära oppositioner. Fantasi möter verklighet i en seriös lek kring teknologins inverkan på rätten till ditt ansikte, kropp och sinne.
Projektet intitierades med kulturstöd från Kulturbryggan, Konstnärsnämnden.
Workshop in Gotland
Gotland June 2021
Artist Juri Markkula generously let us borrow his art studio in an old movie theatre in Roma. Roma was the location of Gotland’s largest ting place, the “Gulnatinget”, from the earlist history of the island. Working in this rural setting, animated a compelling contrast to the concept of contemporary cyborgian art. The analog natural world as mise-en-scène for our chimera cyborgs to come alive. The visual documentation from various parts of Gotland illustrates this further.
Analog Camera Surveillance Tricksters Art Activism
Stockholm city 2021
FUTURELESS Digital Art Festival
Stockholm August 13th, 2022
Under Construction – a nomadic lab exploring nature/technology split through trickster identities with Chimera Cyborgs Karin Victorin & Sofia Priftis. Participants are invited to join in our transformational communion.
[A Picnic Performance and Participatory Workshop at Blivande extending to the surrounding environment]
Link to Futurless festival: http://www.futurelessfestival.com/
G.O.A.T
Created by artist and architect @sofiapriftis, G.O.A.T is a chimera cyborg creature synchronized by the power animals goat, horse, and crow. This creature breaks free from its uniform performing mischief in public spaces, activating a reminder of the origins of human identity and how it manifests through intra-action with its surroundings, where the “suit” or “uniform” symbolizes the decay of mankind in becoming surveillance capitalism.
In Swedish:
I chimeran G.O.A.T möter den schematiska digitala trianguleringen de organiska uttrycken av det djuriska.
Med hur få ytor och hur lite data kan en hästs hästighet läsas, en bocks bockighet, en kråkas kråkiga essens?
G.O.A.T är en chimera byggd av de tre kraftdjuren hästen, bocken och kråkan.
Hästen som en källa av kraft, uthållighet och den transformerande resan mot frihet.
Getabocken som, förutom sitt ofattbara balanssinne, står för den dionysiska njutningen och frestelserna som ger oss lockelse, motivation och riktning.
Kråkan för dess intelligens och dens förmåga att använda denna intelligens till lek, istället för människans besatthet av det nyttiga.
Kavajen representerar människans förfall in i blivandet av kapitalistisk kugge. Den är en av våra mer normaliserade maskeringar där vi låtsas att vi inte är våra mer primitiva varanden.
Tillsammans bryter sig dessa kraftdjur ut ur den skräddade kavajen och G.O.A.T blir till en styrkemanifestation av och en påminnelse om vad som en människas mänsklighet egentligen består av.
Chimera Cyborg Catwalk Challenge
Stockholm October 29th, Cirkus Venues
Hosted by: Robert Fux
Jury: Hungry, Scotty the Blue Bunny & Karin Victorin
Photographers: Malou Bergman, Anna Drvnik
THE WINNER!
MIXED MEDIA ARTIST ITA DREW
Texture – Shadow
Here’s a character who represents a sense of the Mythic. The one who tells us stories, and connects us to the earth, and the either. Standing in a ghostly transient state, it bends the shadows that sit in the light. Absorbing, and layering them into the sounds of the night.
Ita Drew’s words about her Chimera Cyborg Creature:
About:
My Cyborg Chimera trickster is a creature that transcended from another realm, often called upon in certain hallucinogenic ceremonies, this Mythic creature is one to show you the essence of your true self, to pay honor to what is truly your inner spirit. However, this time when entering, and because of all the extra electrical currents in the air and extra 5G (joke), its transcendence became entwined, meaning a metamorphous occurred. Now, this Godly creature previously had the ability to enter our subconscious through the ceremony but since becoming part Cyborg, now has the power to travel into anyone’s device at any time, including all surveillance and even T.V, and Laptops. It sees you at every moment, waiting for its time to decend back to its realm and report back to the gods what has happened to the humans of the earth and how we seem to have an increasing paranoia of each other and engage less with nature. Noticing that some humans have become caught in the midst of constant validation, vanity, and capitalist mindsets that threaten our sense of self. Mostly the creature is at large desperate to go back to its realm as they have become enraged with how boring and self-indulgent humans are it has become almost like purgatory for this creature, watching them and their disgraceful habits! (Brian wanking in the office….Susan shoplifting even though she’s on 5000,000,000kr a year.
This Trickster has become so plagued by its vision it has started to tell jokes, and by infiltrating social media, highlighting people’s misbecoming. All those memes and ticktock videos of people’s embarrassing moments caught on film. My creature has the ability to download and upload them. No one is safe in this world of media you could fall prey to an online public display at any moment. My trickster is in the driving seat controlling the narrative and playing you at your own game.
My Cyborg Trickster has an ancient secret language that can only be spoken through the sound of its fragmented frozen costume.
Since the creature passed into our realm and become fixed here its whole fabric changed, the sound of its ethereal outer layer is a way of making sounds that talk to a primitive sense of self, one that connects you back to the gods. The Creature hopes that by playing this sound you will through an instinctual nature be called back to the earth and its rhythm. For where this creature comes from is that of the gods and they are bound to the essence and fabric of all existence they are the past and the future an ongoing dalliance that we only get to be part of for a very fleeting moment.
Materials – Method:
I choose to use porcelain as it has a quality that is fragile yet strong. This duality in the aesthetic and materiality of the Caly is what draws me to it. Life, itself can be a duality and cosplay between what we believe and how we are forced to live. For me Ceramics has been used to record, create and share the human experience, we use this material to illustrate the ongoings and imaginations of the mind. It has been used in this way for as long as we as humans began to have thoughts about the world, in some ways you can say it is our connecting fiber to that of the Earth, and the elusive sense of the outer greater cosmos. Our thought become knowledge turned into stories and that’s how we continue to share our experiences and knowledge. I create Mythical creatures because I believe that they still have the power to become vessels of thoughts and shared knowledge. In western culture we are less driven by religion yet there is an ornate part of being human that wants to believe in something bigger than us, perhaps it is so that we can feel less accountable for the state of the planet, or that we will be saved….or perhaps it is simply by creating something from another world or realm we can simply have something that represents the mystifying unknown.
Other Chimera Cyborg Challengers
Drag artist Zizi Buffet
The Zizi show”, eller zizi.ai, skapar ”djupfejkade” dragshow-upplevelser med hjälp av maskininlärning för att bekämpa heteronormativa patriarkala normer som vanligtvis dominerar AI-system. Den som vill slåss mot intelligenta maskiner gör bäst i att vända dess styrkor mot maskinerna själva.
