Donate to the Emergency Program!
The Emergency Program of the AIR InSILo hosts artists in critical life situations, as well as independently invites and hosts artists who have lost their income or who suffer difficult life circumstances due to crises.
To support the program, one can buy artworks from the InSILo Gallery; donate ETHER 0xC8F7594bF1654E23f06e1ED058844A7d82e8332d; become a Patron or donate via PayPal or directly to our account: ERSTE BANK, IBAN: AT642011184382869900, BIC/SWIFT: GIBAATWWXXX
To support the program, one can buy artworks from the InSILo Gallery; donate ETHER 0xC8F7594bF1654E23f06e1ED058844A7d82e8332d; become a Patron or donate via PayPal or directly to our account: ERSTE BANK, IBAN: AT642011184382869900, BIC/SWIFT: GIBAATWWXXX
November 2024
Zilan İmşik
in a conversation with Marina Gržinić
"Dive Into Your Mother's Eyes"
01.12.2024-28.02.2025
We are happy to greet Anna Shustikova, who during the winter slot will be working on their audiovisual installation "Dive Into Your Mother's Eyes" (working title).
About the work: "I was born in Russia in the early nineties, right after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was a time of great hope and anticipation for change. During this period, the American writer Sonja Franeta went to Russia to interview members of the LGBTIQA+ community in Siberia, Moscow, and St. Petersburg at the crossroads of two eras. She collected a series of deeply personal stories about the everyday lives of queer women at that time. Thirty years have passed, and a new generation of queers has grown up. However, hopes for a better future have not been realised: in contemporary Russia, 'LGBT propaganda' is banned, and the so-called international LGBT movement is recognised as extremist. By turning to the archives collected by Sonja Franeta, I am trying to establish a connection between different generations of queer women."
Illustration: © Anna Shustikova
The winter 3-month slot in AIR InSILo is supported by the Culture Moves Europe program of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.
About the work: "I was born in Russia in the early nineties, right after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was a time of great hope and anticipation for change. During this period, the American writer Sonja Franeta went to Russia to interview members of the LGBTIQA+ community in Siberia, Moscow, and St. Petersburg at the crossroads of two eras. She collected a series of deeply personal stories about the everyday lives of queer women at that time. Thirty years have passed, and a new generation of queers has grown up. However, hopes for a better future have not been realised: in contemporary Russia, 'LGBT propaganda' is banned, and the so-called international LGBT movement is recognised as extremist. By turning to the archives collected by Sonja Franeta, I am trying to establish a connection between different generations of queer women."
Illustration: © Anna Shustikova
The winter 3-month slot in AIR InSILo is supported by the Culture Moves Europe program of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.
"Clotho" by anastazja Palczukiewicz
We cordially welcome Anastazja Palczukiewicz to spend the winter slot in AIR InSILo.
Anastazja (b. 1994 Belarus) is based in Paris. She works with mixed media, including sculpture, installation, video, and sound. She addresses the concept of identity through research on the connections between the subject and the form of power, where the notions of memory, agency, and voice become important. Addressing issues of geopolitics, she explores how global crises and conflicts affect changes and transformations in local and regional contexts.
During the 3-month winter slot, working on her project "Clotho" (working title), Anastazja will research the interrelationships between identity, cultural heritage, and censorship in the postcolonial context of Western Belarus. Based on the archives and memoirs of people whose lives were connected with this region but whose identity remains unspoken, not expressed due to various social, political, or cultural reasons, she turns to the ideas of sociologist Zygmunt Bauman about “liquid identity” and proposes her own speculative model of perception of identity and home.
Illustration: © Anastazja Palczukiewicz
The winter 3-month slot in AIR InSILo is supported by the Culture Moves Europe program of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.
Anastazja (b. 1994 Belarus) is based in Paris. She works with mixed media, including sculpture, installation, video, and sound. She addresses the concept of identity through research on the connections between the subject and the form of power, where the notions of memory, agency, and voice become important. Addressing issues of geopolitics, she explores how global crises and conflicts affect changes and transformations in local and regional contexts.
During the 3-month winter slot, working on her project "Clotho" (working title), Anastazja will research the interrelationships between identity, cultural heritage, and censorship in the postcolonial context of Western Belarus. Based on the archives and memoirs of people whose lives were connected with this region but whose identity remains unspoken, not expressed due to various social, political, or cultural reasons, she turns to the ideas of sociologist Zygmunt Bauman about “liquid identity” and proposes her own speculative model of perception of identity and home.
Illustration: © Anastazja Palczukiewicz
The winter 3-month slot in AIR InSILo is supported by the Culture Moves Europe program of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.
01.12.2024-28.02.2025
In a conversation with Marina Gržinić, Zilan İmşik is explaining her project focusing on creating a dictionary of Diyarbakir Military Prison. There many political prisoners, mainly Kurdish, were held in the 1980s; and the prison was known to have been one of the worst in the world at that time. In the prison, a new language was adopted by the military. İmşik is looking at the language that was used and how words lost their original meanings within the prison and were instead used to represent a form of torture. To do that, she looks into the testimonies of former prisoners, as well as the letters and postcards sent from the prison.
Upon completion of the dictionary, İmşik plans to create a multimedia installation of this world through the vocabulary that was used and what they represented.
The Turkish government is currently in the process of turning the prison into a “cultural centre,” and through the work, the artist wants to offer a counter-narrative to one of the states.
Upon completion of the dictionary, İmşik plans to create a multimedia installation of this world through the vocabulary that was used and what they represented.
The Turkish government is currently in the process of turning the prison into a “cultural centre,” and through the work, the artist wants to offer a counter-narrative to one of the states.
October 2024
Non-Utterance, Art and Justice.
Survey Result
Eaves-dropping by Esra Oskay. A conver-sation with Başak Şenova
November 2024
Esra Oskay explores the implicit and explicit expressions of self-censorship as a form of regulating the visible and sayable. Focusing on contemporary Turkey, Oskay reflects on censorship's definitions and manifold operations, its impact on individual expressions and the collective dimensions of this experience.
Since November 2023, the artist has kept a log book where she noted down people talking about "sensitive" issues in public amongst their friends yet at a hearing distance to her. This particular form of listening captures what is spoken within "dissident friendships" circles, even in a lower voice. Esra Oskay proceeds through these transcripts hidden from the public view and tries to amplify these quiet resistances. The work that is developed in this residency is based on the ongoing research of a quiet archive of censorship. Based on this local and situated experience of censorship in Turkey, the artist envisions this project to take a form that could communicate the affective dimension of censorship for the individual subjects beyond the Turkish case in the wider context of today, in which free speech has become a rather risky field.
Since November 2023, the artist has kept a log book where she noted down people talking about "sensitive" issues in public amongst their friends yet at a hearing distance to her. This particular form of listening captures what is spoken within "dissident friendships" circles, even in a lower voice. Esra Oskay proceeds through these transcripts hidden from the public view and tries to amplify these quiet resistances. The work that is developed in this residency is based on the ongoing research of a quiet archive of censorship. Based on this local and situated experience of censorship in Turkey, the artist envisions this project to take a form that could communicate the affective dimension of censorship for the individual subjects beyond the Turkish case in the wider context of today, in which free speech has become a rather risky field.
Tonica Hunter in a conver-sation
with wuwu Collective
with wuwu Collective
Illustration: © Ksenia Yurkova
“The root of documentary film was ethnographic documentation, serving as a tool of the empire for colonization based on the falsehood of the "objective" lens of the camera & white gaze. Exoticizing, objectifying, patronizing. There's always a degree of romanticizing that is also found in a lot of tourism advertisements - an escape from the modern toil of 9-5 in the backdrop of [insert tropical paradise, desert oasis, pina colada on the beach, African safari…] What does it mean to seek an "authentic" experience of the culture you are visiting? Is it an arrested version stuck in a specific stereotype in history? I.e., Geisha in kimono, Native Americans in feathered headdresses on a horse, etc. These images are in itself propaganda in how one is told to consume the "other". Having an honest look at the gap between the lived experiences and stereotypes is something we plan to achieve in this work, that tourism is, in reality, a capitalistic extension of the colonial gaze”.
“The root of documentary film was ethnographic documentation, serving as a tool of the empire for colonization based on the falsehood of the "objective" lens of the camera & white gaze. Exoticizing, objectifying, patronizing. There's always a degree of romanticizing that is also found in a lot of tourism advertisements - an escape from the modern toil of 9-5 in the backdrop of [insert tropical paradise, desert oasis, pina colada on the beach, African safari…] What does it mean to seek an "authentic" experience of the culture you are visiting? Is it an arrested version stuck in a specific stereotype in history? I.e., Geisha in kimono, Native Americans in feathered headdresses on a horse, etc. These images are in itself propaganda in how one is told to consume the "other". Having an honest look at the gap between the lived experiences and stereotypes is something we plan to achieve in this work, that tourism is, in reality, a capitalistic extension of the colonial gaze”.
December 2024
Illustration: Sheer Poetry for a Cultural Bureaucrat, Ksenia Yurkova, 2024
After analysing our latest „Non-Utterance“ survey results, we conclude that artistic freedom for migrant artists, especially those from marginalized backgrounds, is continuously constrained by both overt and subtle forms of censorship, creating a double bind for those seeking refuge in new regions. While many artists hope for greater freedom of expression after relocating, structural, institutional, and cultural pressures in host countries often perpetuate a restrictive environment that limits both their self-expression and the political potential of their work. These findings support New Censorship Theory, which suggests that modern censorship extends beyond obvious repression, permeating cultural norms, market forces, and institutional biases, which create powerful, often invisible barriers to true creative freedom. This pervasive censorship, intertwined with market pressures and unspoken societal expectations, requires artists to self-censor, leading to anticipatory obedience even in more „liberal“ societies.
What we need, is a nuanced understanding of artistic freedom and calls for systemic change to support the full spectrum of expression for migrant and refugee artists beyond mere relocation, honoring their voices without imposing invisible constraints.
After analysing our latest „Non-Utterance“ survey results, we conclude that artistic freedom for migrant artists, especially those from marginalized backgrounds, is continuously constrained by both overt and subtle forms of censorship, creating a double bind for those seeking refuge in new regions. While many artists hope for greater freedom of expression after relocating, structural, institutional, and cultural pressures in host countries often perpetuate a restrictive environment that limits both their self-expression and the political potential of their work. These findings support New Censorship Theory, which suggests that modern censorship extends beyond obvious repression, permeating cultural norms, market forces, and institutional biases, which create powerful, often invisible barriers to true creative freedom. This pervasive censorship, intertwined with market pressures and unspoken societal expectations, requires artists to self-censor, leading to anticipatory obedience even in more „liberal“ societies.
What we need, is a nuanced understanding of artistic freedom and calls for systemic change to support the full spectrum of expression for migrant and refugee artists beyond mere relocation, honoring their voices without imposing invisible constraints.
wuwu collective in air InSILo
01.08.2024- 15.09.2024
Over the next few weeks, the WUWU collective, a group of artists creating works in solidarity with the Uyghurs, will be engaged in their film project, which follows a traveller’s train journey from Moscow to Beijing in 2017 along the New Silk Road, inadvertently bearing witness to East Turkestan (known as Xinjiang, China). There, domestic tourism is promoted to hide an ongoing genocide of Uygurs. Disguised as a travelogue, the project offers an unprecedented look into an authoritarian surveillance police state and a critical study of state propaganda. The footage and photography from the trip serve as source material for experimentation during the residency, including a short film, video installations, and mixed media works.
WUWU is a play on words: 無無, 勿勿 are used interchangeably to describe the precarious state of surviving under an authoritarian regime. 無, meaning “nothing” or “lack of”, references the 2022 #a4revolution when holding up a blank piece of paper became a protest symbol of dissent in China. 勿, meaning “no” or “don’t”, alludes to the suppression of freedom in speech and movement. It also calls out the international silence on Uyghur genocide, relating to the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” Western symbolism of turning a blind eye to evil.
WUWU is a play on words: 無無, 勿勿 are used interchangeably to describe the precarious state of surviving under an authoritarian regime. 無, meaning “nothing” or “lack of”, references the 2022 #a4revolution when holding up a blank piece of paper became a protest symbol of dissent in China. 勿, meaning “no” or “don’t”, alludes to the suppression of freedom in speech and movement. It also calls out the international silence on Uyghur genocide, relating to the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” Western symbolism of turning a blind eye to evil.
dictionary of Diyarbakir Military Prison
15.08.2024- 1.10.2024
During the following six weeks, Zilan İmşik will be working on a project focusing on creating a dictionary of Diyarbakir Military Prison, where mainly Kurdish political prisoners were held in the 1980s, known to have been one of the worst prisons in the world at that time. In the prison, a new language was adopted by the military. İmşik will be looking at the language that was used and how words lost their original meanings within the prison and were instead used to represent a form of torture. To do that, she will look into the testimonies of former prisoners, as well as the letters and postcards sent from the prison.
Upon completion of the dictionary, İmşik plans to create a multimedia installation of this world through the vocabulary that was used and what they represented.
The Turkish government is currently in the process of turning the prison into a “cultural centre,” and through the work, the artist wants to offer a counter-narrative to one of the states.
Zilan İmşik (b. 1996) is an artist interested in telling stories that revolve around space, memory and violence. Most of her works are based on historical events, and she predominantly works with sound, photography and video in her practice. Zilan has an MA in Documentary Photography from London College of Communication and a BA in Film. She is based in Istanbul and London.
Upon completion of the dictionary, İmşik plans to create a multimedia installation of this world through the vocabulary that was used and what they represented.
The Turkish government is currently in the process of turning the prison into a “cultural centre,” and through the work, the artist wants to offer a counter-narrative to one of the states.
Zilan İmşik (b. 1996) is an artist interested in telling stories that revolve around space, memory and violence. Most of her works are based on historical events, and she predominantly works with sound, photography and video in her practice. Zilan has an MA in Documentary Photography from London College of Communication and a BA in Film. She is based in Istanbul and London.
Protestpilze by Krzysztof Wronski
Protestpilze is an outdoor sound installation by Krzysztof Wronski featuring audio emitting from a series of mushroom-like sculptures placed on the forest floor. Based on the observation that the area around Hollabrunn, Austria, continues to be developed with more and more shopping centres, the mushrooms draw attention to neglectful land management practices that favour short-term human-centric desires over long-term ecosystem needs. When open land is paved for the first time, this “seals” the soil, removing the potential for many living creatures to make the land their home. This process can be irreversible for 10.000 years, and research shows that Austria seals almost 2x more soil per year (adjusted for population) compared to the EU average. In response to the grief this causes to the non-human living creatures of Hollabrunn, the Protestpilze are planted in various parts of the Hollabrunner Kirchenwald, a recreational forest where many people go to relax and enjoy nature. As visitors move through the forest, their motion will trigger familiar and annoying sounds of the supermarket, played by the mushrooms as a form of resistance.
October 2024
eaves-dropping
by Esra Oskay
by Esra Oskay
During the summer slot, Esra Oskay will continue her work by exploring the implicit and explicit expressions of self-censorship as a form of regulating the visible and sayable. Focusing on contemporary Turkey, Oskay reflects on censorship's definitions and manifold operations, its impact on individual expressions and the collective dimensions of this experience.
Since November 2023, the artist has kept a log book where she noted down people talking about "sensitive" issues in public amongst their friends yet at a hearing distance to her. This particular form of listening captures what is spoken within "dissident friendships" circles, even in a lower voice. Esra Oskay proceeds through these transcripts hidden from the public view and tries to amplify these quiet resistances. The work that is developed in this residency is based on the ongoing research of a quiet archive of censorship. Based on this local and situated experience of censorship in Turkey, the artist envisions this project to take a form that could communicate the affective dimension of censorship for the individual subjects beyond the Turkish case in the wider context of today, in which free speech has become a rather risky field.
Since November 2023, the artist has kept a log book where she noted down people talking about "sensitive" issues in public amongst their friends yet at a hearing distance to her. This particular form of listening captures what is spoken within "dissident friendships" circles, even in a lower voice. Esra Oskay proceeds through these transcripts hidden from the public view and tries to amplify these quiet resistances. The work that is developed in this residency is based on the ongoing research of a quiet archive of censorship. Based on this local and situated experience of censorship in Turkey, the artist envisions this project to take a form that could communicate the affective dimension of censorship for the individual subjects beyond the Turkish case in the wider context of today, in which free speech has become a rather risky field.
05.07.2024- 18.08.2024
An interview with Jovana Blagojević
1.06.2024
the "Non-Utterance" Second call's Results
Illustration: © Anastazja Palczukiewicz
The results of the second part of the open call “Non-Utterance”.
The winter 3-month slot finalists are:
• Anastazja Palczukiewicz (PL/ FR) @plczkwcz
• Maiada Aboud (GER) @drmaiada
• Anna Shustikova (FR) a_shust
During two rounds of the open call, we received 154 applications from 47 countries. We are genuinely grateful to all those who donated a solidarity fee. Even though it was not obligatory, we received 45 payments to support our Emergency program.
More exciting news to come: very soon we will announce the third part of the open call “Non-Utterance” finalists. The prolongation of the residence became possible thanks to the kind support of the the Culture Moves Europe program of the European Union.
The winter 3-month slot in AIR InSILo is supported by the Culture Moves Europe program of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.
The results of the second part of the open call “Non-Utterance”.
The winter 3-month slot finalists are:
• Anastazja Palczukiewicz (PL/ FR) @plczkwcz
• Maiada Aboud (GER) @drmaiada
• Anna Shustikova (FR) a_shust
During two rounds of the open call, we received 154 applications from 47 countries. We are genuinely grateful to all those who donated a solidarity fee. Even though it was not obligatory, we received 45 payments to support our Emergency program.
More exciting news to come: very soon we will announce the third part of the open call “Non-Utterance” finalists. The prolongation of the residence became possible thanks to the kind support of the the Culture Moves Europe program of the European Union.
The winter 3-month slot in AIR InSILo is supported by the Culture Moves Europe program of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.
1.08.2024
Jovana's project for AIR InSILo is focused on the question of values around work. When does work bring value and meaning, vs. when is it turned into meaningless, overworking, sophisticated slavery? Furthermore, it explores the virtues of leisure – which brings quality to life, as the time when we can reassess the reasons why and what we are doing. During the residence period at AIR InSILo, Jovana continued her research on the 'crosswords' between the thoughts and sentences around work, with which we are brought up, and which shape our values of work and our need to create, and the ones that restrain us and keep us in a pointless workaholic state of mind.
Protestpilze by Krzysztof Wronski
25.04. - 16.05.2024
We warmly welcome Krzysztof Wronski, who returned to AIR InSILo to realise his new project, Protestpilze. Protestpilze is an outdoor sound installation featuring audio emitting from a series of mushroom-like sculptures placed on the forest floor. Based on the observation that the area around Hollabrunn, Austria continues to be developed with more and more shopping centres, the mushrooms draw attention to neglectful land management practices that favour short-term human-centric desires over long-term ecosystem needs. When open land is paved for the first time, this “seals” the soil, removing the potential for many living creatures to make the land their home. This process can be irreversible for 10.000 years, and research shows that Austria seals almost 2x more soil per year (adjusted for population) compared to the EU average. In response to the grief this causes to the non-human living creatures of Hollabrunn, the Protestpilze are planted in various parts of the Hollabrunner Kirchenwald, a recreational forest where many people go to relax and enjoy nature. As visitors move through the forest, their motion will trigger familiar and annoying sounds of the supermarket, played by the mushrooms as a form of resistance.
Protestpilze outdoor presentation
11.05.2024
On Saturday, May 11, from 14:00 to 16:00, we cordially invite you to an outdoor excursion to the forests of Hollabrunn and an afterparty at 16:30 in the garden of AIR InSILo.
Protestpilze is an outdoor sound installation by Krzysztof Wronski featuring audio emitting from a series of mushroom-like sculptures placed on the forest floor. Based on the observation that the area around Hollabrunn, Austria, continues to be developed with more and more shopping centres, the mushrooms draw attention to neglectful land management practices that favour short-term human-centric desires over long-term ecosystem needs. When open land is paved for the first time, this “seals” the soil, removing the potential for many living creatures to make the land their home. This process can be irreversible for 10.000 years, and research shows that Austria seals almost 2x more soil per year (adjusted for population) compared to the EU average. In response to the grief this causes to the non-human living creatures of Hollabrunn, the Protestpilze are planted in various parts of the Hollabrunner Kirchenwald, a recreational forest where many people go to relax and enjoy nature. As visitors move through the forest, their motion will trigger familiar and annoying sounds of the supermarket, played by the mushrooms as a form of resistance.
Protestpilze is an outdoor sound installation by Krzysztof Wronski featuring audio emitting from a series of mushroom-like sculptures placed on the forest floor. Based on the observation that the area around Hollabrunn, Austria, continues to be developed with more and more shopping centres, the mushrooms draw attention to neglectful land management practices that favour short-term human-centric desires over long-term ecosystem needs. When open land is paved for the first time, this “seals” the soil, removing the potential for many living creatures to make the land their home. This process can be irreversible for 10.000 years, and research shows that Austria seals almost 2x more soil per year (adjusted for population) compared to the EU average. In response to the grief this causes to the non-human living creatures of Hollabrunn, the Protestpilze are planted in various parts of the Hollabrunner Kirchenwald, a recreational forest where many people go to relax and enjoy nature. As visitors move through the forest, their motion will trigger familiar and annoying sounds of the supermarket, played by the mushrooms as a form of resistance.
Results of the "Non-Utterance" open call
Illustration: © Esra Oskay, Eavesdropping. Chapter 2.
The summer/autumn 6-week slot finalists are:
• Zilan Imsik (UK)
• Esra Oskay (Türkiye)
• wuwu collective (USA)
The shortlisted artists are:
• Mahdi Baraghithi (Palestine)
• Shoili Kanungo (India)
• Sahand Sarhaddi (Iran)
• Alqumit Alhamad (Sweden)
The shortlisted artists, who have shown immense potential, will have preferences in future open calls and/ or will be invited directly for future projects within the framework of AIR InSILo or its fellow institutions in Austria.
During two rounds of the open call, we received 154 applications from 47 countries. We are genuinely grateful to all those who donated a solidarity fee. Even though it was not obligatory, we received 45 payments to support our Emergency program.
The summer/autumn 6-week slot finalists are:
• Zilan Imsik (UK)
• Esra Oskay (Türkiye)
• wuwu collective (USA)
The shortlisted artists are:
• Mahdi Baraghithi (Palestine)
• Shoili Kanungo (India)
• Sahand Sarhaddi (Iran)
• Alqumit Alhamad (Sweden)
The shortlisted artists, who have shown immense potential, will have preferences in future open calls and/ or will be invited directly for future projects within the framework of AIR InSILo or its fellow institutions in Austria.
During two rounds of the open call, we received 154 applications from 47 countries. We are genuinely grateful to all those who donated a solidarity fee. Even though it was not obligatory, we received 45 payments to support our Emergency program.
13.05.2024
(Un)limited artistic resource
Survey Result
Survey Result
1.03.2024
©In SILo Mag, 2024
Illustrations: Maria Safronova Wahlström
At the beginning of 2023, AIR InSILo invited artists to participate in a survey to contextualize the open call 2023/24 (Un)limited Artistic Resource concerning artists‘ wages and working conditions. The Global COVID-19 pandemic, a full-scale war on the territory of Europe, and a devastating natural disaster in Syria and Turkey were just a few examples that significantly exacerbated the life and work insecurity of people in general and artists/ cultural workers in particular during the last years. As of January 2024, 181 international artists had participated in the study voluntarily and on condition of anonymity.
The most significant insight of this research is the total average income from art alone: 4,210 Euros. With additional and non-art-related jobs, the total cumulative average income of the artist per year constitutes 10,814 Euros. It is essential to mention that the demands of the Austrian State for a freelance artist visa are around 20,000 Euros of annual income. Only 3.9% of our respondents can match this criterion.
The full text is in InSILo Mag
Illustrations: Maria Safronova Wahlström
At the beginning of 2023, AIR InSILo invited artists to participate in a survey to contextualize the open call 2023/24 (Un)limited Artistic Resource concerning artists‘ wages and working conditions. The Global COVID-19 pandemic, a full-scale war on the territory of Europe, and a devastating natural disaster in Syria and Turkey were just a few examples that significantly exacerbated the life and work insecurity of people in general and artists/ cultural workers in particular during the last years. As of January 2024, 181 international artists had participated in the study voluntarily and on condition of anonymity.
The most significant insight of this research is the total average income from art alone: 4,210 Euros. With additional and non-art-related jobs, the total cumulative average income of the artist per year constitutes 10,814 Euros. It is essential to mention that the demands of the Austrian State for a freelance artist visa are around 20,000 Euros of annual income. Only 3.9% of our respondents can match this criterion.
The full text is in InSILo Mag
Varvara Sudnik in the virtual residency
For the first time, AIR InSILo facilitates a virtual residency, confronting and answering to the reality of the precarity of migration, which bureaucratic, almost frozen temporality restricts not only freedom of movement but slows down creative metabolism.
Varvara Sudnik (b. 2001 in Belarus) during her virtual residency, will explore the connection between poverty, precarious artistic work, and family ties. Artistic projects often mention "family" when discussing memory and origins, not including the artist's family. Residencies and projects only allow "collectives" or "duos" that serve the institution's interests and increase production. Grants focus on social inequalities and new cultural connections but don't provide enough funding for artists' basic needs. Artists are vulnerable and unable to form strong connections due to constant movement. Art institutions offer minimal compensation, don't accommodate family members, and demand quick results. Conversations with colleagues and friends highlight scarcity and the desire to fulfil basic needs. During the residency, Varvara wants to describe the experience of need, strategies for balance, and the value of domestic responsibilities, family, and friendships. She seeks stability and depth while remaining vulnerable. On the other hand, she wants to explore strategies for change and disrupt the current order where artists are underpaid and expected to reshape society.
Varvara Sudnik (b. 2001 in Belarus) during her virtual residency, will explore the connection between poverty, precarious artistic work, and family ties. Artistic projects often mention "family" when discussing memory and origins, not including the artist's family. Residencies and projects only allow "collectives" or "duos" that serve the institution's interests and increase production. Grants focus on social inequalities and new cultural connections but don't provide enough funding for artists' basic needs. Artists are vulnerable and unable to form strong connections due to constant movement. Art institutions offer minimal compensation, don't accommodate family members, and demand quick results. Conversations with colleagues and friends highlight scarcity and the desire to fulfil basic needs. During the residency, Varvara wants to describe the experience of need, strategies for balance, and the value of domestic responsibilities, family, and friendships. She seeks stability and depth while remaining vulnerable. On the other hand, she wants to explore strategies for change and disrupt the current order where artists are underpaid and expected to reshape society.
19.02-18.03.2024
Open Call for the Round 2024 Part II
Open call for the Round 2024 Part II:
three fully paid residency slots at AIR InSILo
(December 2024 – February 2025).
Deadline: May 9, 2024, 16.00 CEST
The current and the previous year have forced us to take a fresh look at freedom of artistic expression and recognise that it is threatened not only in countries with authoritarian regimes but also in countries with competitive democratic elections. This open call for a new residency Round 2024, which we titled "Non-Utterance", aims to capture this moment, analyse the atmosphere in the artistic environment, and explore censorship and self-censorship in art.
During the next 2024 round, AIR InSILo aims to create a safe space for the completion or reworking of an idea or an artwork that has never been realised due to the political momentum or restraints of self-censorship nature.
We are looking for artistic and curatorial projects and contributions which:
Suffered political oppression or persecution and were censored;
Were self-censored because of concern about the life and well-being of the author;
Critically reflects the topic of censorship and self-censorship;
Want to try out artistic tools that allow one to express ideas indirectly;
Are dedicated to and reflect the conditions of artistic work under oppression.
We offer:
• 3-month residence in AIR InSILo;
• A honorarium of 2250 Euros;
• A coverage of travel costs up to 700 Euros;
• A coverage of visa costs up to 80 Euros;
• Mentoring program with invited Austria-based curators;
*please see the list of eligible countries on the open-call page.
three fully paid residency slots at AIR InSILo
(December 2024 – February 2025).
Deadline: May 9, 2024, 16.00 CEST
The current and the previous year have forced us to take a fresh look at freedom of artistic expression and recognise that it is threatened not only in countries with authoritarian regimes but also in countries with competitive democratic elections. This open call for a new residency Round 2024, which we titled "Non-Utterance", aims to capture this moment, analyse the atmosphere in the artistic environment, and explore censorship and self-censorship in art.
During the next 2024 round, AIR InSILo aims to create a safe space for the completion or reworking of an idea or an artwork that has never been realised due to the political momentum or restraints of self-censorship nature.
We are looking for artistic and curatorial projects and contributions which:
Suffered political oppression or persecution and were censored;
Were self-censored because of concern about the life and well-being of the author;
Critically reflects the topic of censorship and self-censorship;
Want to try out artistic tools that allow one to express ideas indirectly;
Are dedicated to and reflect the conditions of artistic work under oppression.
We offer:
• 3-month residence in AIR InSILo;
• A honorarium of 2250 Euros;
• A coverage of travel costs up to 700 Euros;
• A coverage of visa costs up to 80 Euros;
• Mentoring program with invited Austria-based curators;
*please see the list of eligible countries on the open-call page.
06.04 - 09.05.2024
20.12.2023
Dust of 4am
Kada rad radi?
12.02-18.03.2024
We welcome our new resident, Jovana Blagojević (*1995, Smederevo), who will stay at AIR InSILo for a 5-week slot. A visual art graduate, Jovana recently immersed herself in performative and activist practice. She works with a variety of media, such as drawing and painting, graffiti, video, and video/live performances. Jovana gives group drawing and painting classes to kids and adults and occasionally does mural projects. She is also active in environmental activist projects, working with the team 1+1=3.
Jovana's project for AIR InSILo is focused on the question of values around work. When does work bring value and meaning, vs. when is it turned into meaningless, overworking, sophisticated slavery? Furthermore, it explores the virtues of leisure – which brings quality to life, as the time when we can reassess the reasons why and what we are doing. During the residence period at AIR InSILo, Jovana will continue her research on the 'crosswords' between the thoughts and sentences around work, with which we are brought up, and which shape our values of work and our need to create, and the ones that restrain us and keep us in a pointless workaholic state of mind. The research will be done through reading and through interviews with local people on the topic. The outcomes of the research will be rendered as a 'crossword' – in the form of a physical flag with selected and sewed keywords and expressions of labour.
Jovana's project for AIR InSILo is focused on the question of values around work. When does work bring value and meaning, vs. when is it turned into meaningless, overworking, sophisticated slavery? Furthermore, it explores the virtues of leisure – which brings quality to life, as the time when we can reassess the reasons why and what we are doing. During the residence period at AIR InSILo, Jovana will continue her research on the 'crosswords' between the thoughts and sentences around work, with which we are brought up, and which shape our values of work and our need to create, and the ones that restrain us and keep us in a pointless workaholic state of mind. The research will be done through reading and through interviews with local people on the topic. The outcomes of the research will be rendered as a 'crossword' – in the form of a physical flag with selected and sewed keywords and expressions of labour.
Emirhan Akin travelled to the AIR InSILo with a particular idea in mind. But after he reached Austria on 7 October, it was no longer possible to think about artistic practice and work in the usual sense. Finding reasons to pursue art seemed inappropriate when disaster was unfolding before one’s eyes.
During his time here in Hollabrunn, Emirhan managed to make several interventions. Starting with the specified theme of labour, namely the labour of care and maintenance (something that Emirhan often had to do to sustain his living in Amsterdam), he has reformulated and reframed everyday cleaning into a meditative practice, a way of working through the darkest thoughts, conditions, especially devastating loneliness that fill the mind when one witnesses destroyed cities and looks at the ruins with bodies buried beneath. When there seems to be no energy to sort through the rubble of destruction, as well as your own horror, it feels that it will never be possible to fix anything ever again. Even by cleaning the debris and removing it from sight, it cannot be etched out of your memory.
Emirhan spends his days in the attic space above the studios, dividing and demarcating the space and literally marking dirty as dirty and clean as clean: collecting the contents of the hoover in a large white basin and organising a sterile workspace for the other artists who will arrive at the residency after him.
But here, things are not as simple as they first appear. In a subtle gesture, Emirhan “contaminates” (here, I want to put the term in quotes and use it after Mary Douglas) the space of purity. To see this, one must sit at one’s desk and see the sacred surface already polluted. I can read this message written in cunning, non-manual hieroglyphics: whoever witnesses the disaster ceases to remain innocent and cannot work from a clean slate.
During his time here in Hollabrunn, Emirhan managed to make several interventions. Starting with the specified theme of labour, namely the labour of care and maintenance (something that Emirhan often had to do to sustain his living in Amsterdam), he has reformulated and reframed everyday cleaning into a meditative practice, a way of working through the darkest thoughts, conditions, especially devastating loneliness that fill the mind when one witnesses destroyed cities and looks at the ruins with bodies buried beneath. When there seems to be no energy to sort through the rubble of destruction, as well as your own horror, it feels that it will never be possible to fix anything ever again. Even by cleaning the debris and removing it from sight, it cannot be etched out of your memory.
Emirhan spends his days in the attic space above the studios, dividing and demarcating the space and literally marking dirty as dirty and clean as clean: collecting the contents of the hoover in a large white basin and organising a sterile workspace for the other artists who will arrive at the residency after him.
But here, things are not as simple as they first appear. In a subtle gesture, Emirhan “contaminates” (here, I want to put the term in quotes and use it after Mary Douglas) the space of purity. To see this, one must sit at one’s desk and see the sacred surface already polluted. I can read this message written in cunning, non-manual hieroglyphics: whoever witnesses the disaster ceases to remain innocent and cannot work from a clean slate.
A Survey: Non-Utterance
The current and the previous year have forced us to take a fresh look at freedom of artistic expression and recognise that it is threatened not only in countries with authoritarian regimes but also in countries with competitive democratic elections. This survey aims to capture this moment, analyse the atmosphere in the artistic environment, and serve as a critical basis for the new „Non-Utterance“ Open Call, which explores censorship and self-censorship in art.
It is usually those works that have been repressed that first come to the attention of researchers. At the same time, we know little about the conditions under which artists continue to make art, the strategies they employ to protect themselves and avoid drawing unwanted attention to their work, and the self-censorship that inevitably conflicts with the author's intentions. We observe the process of how artistic expression, suffering from censorship or self-censorship pressures, undergoes many changes: what became dangerous to speak about directly begins to be spoken about indirectly, starts to disguise itself, or indicates its own absence. Artists deploy new strategies to protect themselves, but some of them, even after changing their address and country, do not dare to express themselves openly or directly. This has given rise to a new and unexplored system of imagery, non-appearance, and non-expressiveness, which will be the object of our interest. The only possible strategy for studying these processes is to work directly with the artists, so we would like to start our meticulous work with a new survey.
It is usually those works that have been repressed that first come to the attention of researchers. At the same time, we know little about the conditions under which artists continue to make art, the strategies they employ to protect themselves and avoid drawing unwanted attention to their work, and the self-censorship that inevitably conflicts with the author's intentions. We observe the process of how artistic expression, suffering from censorship or self-censorship pressures, undergoes many changes: what became dangerous to speak about directly begins to be spoken about indirectly, starts to disguise itself, or indicates its own absence. Artists deploy new strategies to protect themselves, but some of them, even after changing their address and country, do not dare to express themselves openly or directly. This has given rise to a new and unexplored system of imagery, non-appearance, and non-expressiveness, which will be the object of our interest. The only possible strategy for studying these processes is to work directly with the artists, so we would like to start our meticulous work with a new survey.
24.02.2024
"Implicit Basis", an artist talk in esc kunst labor
"Implicit Basis", a project by Oleksandr Sirous, Danil Siabro and Dmytro Tentiuk (UKR) on the occasion of their residency at AIR InSILo.
"Our work is a metaphor for the search for all possible meanings through a chaotic system for each of us, which we assemble into a single meaning".
"Our work is a metaphor for the search for all possible meanings through a chaotic system for each of us, which we assemble into a single meaning".
Mosaic speaking: “I feel dead, please animate me”
by Aria Farajnezhad
by Aria Farajnezhad
Following the two workshops and collective intervention to the racist imagery of the mosaic mural located in the Bremen central station which took place under the title “Beyond Undoing a Rediscovery”, with the help of AIR InSILo Aria Farajnezhad turned five of the reconfigured mosaic pieces of the image of the vessel into their original material, meaning ceramics. Farajnezhad used the time in the residency to develop a workshop and performative piece around these ceramics, to carry them to the city where He meets local artists/activists/actors in Austria as a point of departure to talk about working conditions, forms of producing work with poor material, and recipes for collectivity.
25.10.2023
Performance artist Emirhan Akin
9.10-16.11.2023
By rethinking the notions of work, exhaustion, and the slash between the precariat/artist, Emirhan Akin aims to unearth the embodied knowledge he has stored from the cleaning job he has been working for to sustain his art practice, to draw parallels between the durational performance pieces (eventually performance art) and the word cleaning (and it’s political, historical and societal connotations). To dissect this immigrant work (and its economy of exhaustion, which is accumulated in the muscle memory), he plans to focus on the invisibility (of both the cleaner and the end product) as in material and medium (he plans to use). Therefore, (not fixed/could potentially change) he is interested in working with sound, whether it’s a field recording of the non-spaces (areas that are overlooked, neglected, transitional in nature or might not be designed for human interaction) or a transcription of a conversation during an encounter (with human and non-human). By researching the architectural approach to the non-spaces of the city (and the residency space), he aims to intervene in those undefined areas with these sonic experiments.
01.11.2023
22.08.2023
Application Round 2023/24
Results
On the Fringes of Hostility
30.09.2023
A workshop about the investigation of suburban sprawl in Lower Austria and the translation of ideas into clay with Aria Farajnezhad and Lunio.
Aria and Lunio will invite participants to observe the elements of creeping urbanization in the town of Hollabrunn, Lower Austria, and then to translate the ideas, problems, observations, and proposals into clay.
Does the land belong to the private sector? Is it open to the public? Is it only treated to serve human needs? Does the land have an agency, and how do all these alter literally and change the morphology and texture of the surface of the earth? Is it asphalted, cultivated (exploited), trimmed, etc?
The workshop will consist of two parts: field research and work on an individual project with clay, and will run from 10.00 to 19.30.
The workshop is organized on the premises of AIR InSILo and is free. The costs of the materials, refreshments, beverages, and a train ticket to Hollabrunn will be covered. The number of places is limited to seven people.
SAT 30 September
2020 Hollabrunn, Mitterweg 30,
AIR InSILo
Aria and Lunio will invite participants to observe the elements of creeping urbanization in the town of Hollabrunn, Lower Austria, and then to translate the ideas, problems, observations, and proposals into clay.
Does the land belong to the private sector? Is it open to the public? Is it only treated to serve human needs? Does the land have an agency, and how do all these alter literally and change the morphology and texture of the surface of the earth? Is it asphalted, cultivated (exploited), trimmed, etc?
The workshop will consist of two parts: field research and work on an individual project with clay, and will run from 10.00 to 19.30.
The workshop is organized on the premises of AIR InSILo and is free. The costs of the materials, refreshments, beverages, and a train ticket to Hollabrunn will be covered. The number of places is limited to seven people.
SAT 30 September
2020 Hollabrunn, Mitterweg 30,
AIR InSILo
mosaic speaking:
“I feel dead, please animate me”
“I feel dead, please animate me”
Illustration: © Gaurav Talekar
Following the two workshops and collective intervention to the racist imagery of the mosaic mural located in the Bremen central station which took place under the title “Beyond Undoing a Rediscovery”, with the help of AIR InSILo Aria Farajnezhad turned five of the reconfigured mosaic pieces of the image of the vessel into their original material, meaning ceramics. Farajnezhad uses the time in the residency to develop a workshop and performative piece around these ceramics, to carry them to the city where He meets local artists/activists/actors in Austria as a point of departure to talk about working conditions, forms of producing work with poor material, and recipes for collectivity.
Following the two workshops and collective intervention to the racist imagery of the mosaic mural located in the Bremen central station which took place under the title “Beyond Undoing a Rediscovery”, with the help of AIR InSILo Aria Farajnezhad turned five of the reconfigured mosaic pieces of the image of the vessel into their original material, meaning ceramics. Farajnezhad uses the time in the residency to develop a workshop and performative piece around these ceramics, to carry them to the city where He meets local artists/activists/actors in Austria as a point of departure to talk about working conditions, forms of producing work with poor material, and recipes for collectivity.
19.09-16.10.2023
After one month of hot discussions in hot conditions, we are delighted to announce new residents of AIR InSILo for the round 2023/ 2024! They are:
* Aria Farajnezhad (Germany) – September 19 – October 16, 2023;
* Emirhan Akın (The Netherlands/ Turkey) – October 9 – November 13, 2023;
* Jovana Blagojević (Serbia) – February 12 – March 18, 2024;
* Varvara Sudnik (Germany) – February 12 – March 18, 2024.
The shortlisted artists are:
* Libby Scarlett (The United Kingdom)
* Joe Snape (The United Kingdom)
* The artist preferred to withdraw their name (Germany)
All the shortlisted artists comprise the AIR InSILo network. They will have preferences in future open calls or/and be invited directly for future projects within the framework of AIR InSILo or its fellow institutions in Austria.
During this call, we received in total of 142 applications from 39 countries.
Do not forget to subscribe to our social media and news not to miss future open calls!
* Aria Farajnezhad (Germany) – September 19 – October 16, 2023;
* Emirhan Akın (The Netherlands/ Turkey) – October 9 – November 13, 2023;
* Jovana Blagojević (Serbia) – February 12 – March 18, 2024;
* Varvara Sudnik (Germany) – February 12 – March 18, 2024.
The shortlisted artists are:
* Libby Scarlett (The United Kingdom)
* Joe Snape (The United Kingdom)
* The artist preferred to withdraw their name (Germany)
All the shortlisted artists comprise the AIR InSILo network. They will have preferences in future open calls or/and be invited directly for future projects within the framework of AIR InSILo or its fellow institutions in Austria.
During this call, we received in total of 142 applications from 39 countries.
Do not forget to subscribe to our social media and news not to miss future open calls!
"Implicit Basis", an artist talk in esc kunst labor (Graz)
31.05.2023
"Implicit Basis", a project by Oleksandr Sirous, Danil Siabro and Dmytro Tentiuk (UKR) on the occasion of their residency at AIR InSILo [in-silo.com] presented by the artists and by Ksenia Yurkova and Martin Breindl (AIR InSILo).
"Our work is a metaphor for the search for all possible meanings through a chaotic system for each of us, which we assemble into a single meaning".
Wednesday, 31. May 2023 - 19:00
esc medien kunst labor
Bürgergasse 5, 8010 Graz, Austria
"Our work is a metaphor for the search for all possible meanings through a chaotic system for each of us, which we assemble into a single meaning".
Wednesday, 31. May 2023 - 19:00
esc medien kunst labor
Bürgergasse 5, 8010 Graz, Austria
(Un)limited artistic resource
Open Call
Open Call
20.06 - 20.07.2023
Open call for the Round 2023/2024:
three fully paid residency slots at AIR InSILo.
Extended deadline: July 27, 2023, 16.00 CEST
This call, the '(Un)limited artistic resource', aims to study and reflect the labour conditions of artists and cultural workers and focuses on the material side of artistic production in terms of deficiency.
During the next 2023/24 round, AIR InSILo aims to create a space for reflection and self-reflection of an artist working in a neoliberal contemporaneity.
• 5-week residence in AIR InSilo, Lower Austria;
• A honorarium of 1000 Euros
• Production costs up to 500 Euros
• A coverage of travel costs up to 300 Euros
• A coverage of transport costs up to 50 Euros
• An opportunity to stay with a partner and/or 1-2 children
• Usage of the facilities and equipment provided by the AIR InSilo
• Featuring in the InSilo Magazine
three fully paid residency slots at AIR InSILo.
Extended deadline: July 27, 2023, 16.00 CEST
This call, the '(Un)limited artistic resource', aims to study and reflect the labour conditions of artists and cultural workers and focuses on the material side of artistic production in terms of deficiency.
During the next 2023/24 round, AIR InSILo aims to create a space for reflection and self-reflection of an artist working in a neoliberal contemporaneity.
• 5-week residence in AIR InSilo, Lower Austria;
• A honorarium of 1000 Euros
• Production costs up to 500 Euros
• A coverage of travel costs up to 300 Euros
• A coverage of transport costs up to 50 Euros
• An opportunity to stay with a partner and/or 1-2 children
• Usage of the facilities and equipment provided by the AIR InSilo
• Featuring in the InSilo Magazine
Open Studio Day and a garden party
A LINE UP
14.00 – 19.30 on display: a mock-up of the interactive installation "Implicit Basis", the result of three months of work by Alex Sirous, Danil Siabro, and Dmytro Tentiuk in AIR InSILo
14.00 -15.30 MKCMLLN (Maksym Uvarov)
15.30 – 16.30 who I why (Moritz Wunderwald)
16.30 – 17.30 Marshrutka (Margo Dubovska)
17.30 – 18.30 who I why & Marshrutka
18.30 – 18.40 a brief round tour through the residency premises, a glimpse into the artist's studios (for those who are interested in the new call for the round 2023/24 (Un)limited Artistic Resource)
18.40 – 19.30 an artist talk and a presentation of the "Implicit Basis" interactive installation project by Alex Sirous, Danil Siabro, Dmytro Tentiuk
19.30 – 21.00 _mediaklub (Dmytro Tentiuk)
Beverages and refreshments of the local art
June 24, 2023. 14.00 - 21.00
AIR InSILo, Mitterweg 30 2020, Hollabrunn, Lower Austria*
*A fast train from Vienna runs every hour from Wien Mitte, Praterstern or Floridsdorf direction Retz or Znojmo. The travel takes 40 min. The residence AIR InSILo is a five minutes walk from the Hollabrunn train station.
14.00 – 19.30 on display: a mock-up of the interactive installation "Implicit Basis", the result of three months of work by Alex Sirous, Danil Siabro, and Dmytro Tentiuk in AIR InSILo
14.00 -15.30 MKCMLLN (Maksym Uvarov)
15.30 – 16.30 who I why (Moritz Wunderwald)
16.30 – 17.30 Marshrutka (Margo Dubovska)
17.30 – 18.30 who I why & Marshrutka
18.30 – 18.40 a brief round tour through the residency premises, a glimpse into the artist's studios (for those who are interested in the new call for the round 2023/24 (Un)limited Artistic Resource)
18.40 – 19.30 an artist talk and a presentation of the "Implicit Basis" interactive installation project by Alex Sirous, Danil Siabro, Dmytro Tentiuk
19.30 – 21.00 _mediaklub (Dmytro Tentiuk)
Beverages and refreshments of the local art
June 24, 2023. 14.00 - 21.00
AIR InSILo, Mitterweg 30 2020, Hollabrunn, Lower Austria*
*A fast train from Vienna runs every hour from Wien Mitte, Praterstern or Floridsdorf direction Retz or Znojmo. The travel takes 40 min. The residence AIR InSILo is a five minutes walk from the Hollabrunn train station.
24.06.2023
Emergency resident Dmytro Tentiuk
AIR InSILo welcomes Dmytro Tentiuk, who will be working in the residency on the 'Implicit Basis' project till the end of June 2023, together with Danil Siabro and Olexandr Sirous. The residence, a part of the Emergency Project of AIR InSILo, is supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport and facilitated by Artists at Risk (AR).
Dmytro Tentiuk (b. 1997 in Kyiv) is a multidisciplinary artist, musician and designer living and working in Kyiv. His work takes the shape of videos, installations, and audiovisual performances. By making use of new media and technology, his work investigates the border between the digital world and reality.
In 2018 Tentiuk created the project' OTY.10', focusing on the synthesis of visual and sound practices, the creation of audiovisual installations and audio performance. Dmytro has been an active sound artist since 2019. In 2019 he graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture (easel graphics department), Kyiv, and at the moment, he is a postgraduate student of the Department of Theory and History of Art of the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture. Since 2020 – a co-founder and member of the '_mediaklub' formation.
Since 2020 Tentiuk has been a member of the 'Photinus studio', a new media art formation operating since 2012 and facilitating international art exhibitions – Venice Biennale, transmediale Vorspiel, Digital Cultures (Warsaw, Poland); music and light festivals - Strichka Festival, KievLightFest and many others.
Dmytro Tentiuk (b. 1997 in Kyiv) is a multidisciplinary artist, musician and designer living and working in Kyiv. His work takes the shape of videos, installations, and audiovisual performances. By making use of new media and technology, his work investigates the border between the digital world and reality.
In 2018 Tentiuk created the project' OTY.10', focusing on the synthesis of visual and sound practices, the creation of audiovisual installations and audio performance. Dmytro has been an active sound artist since 2019. In 2019 he graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture (easel graphics department), Kyiv, and at the moment, he is a postgraduate student of the Department of Theory and History of Art of the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture. Since 2020 – a co-founder and member of the '_mediaklub' formation.
Since 2020 Tentiuk has been a member of the 'Photinus studio', a new media art formation operating since 2012 and facilitating international art exhibitions – Venice Biennale, transmediale Vorspiel, Digital Cultures (Warsaw, Poland); music and light festivals - Strichka Festival, KievLightFest and many others.
April 2023
Art Apparatus and the Technology of
(a fruit fly) Encounter
by Tatiana Istomina
(a fruit fly) Encounter
by Tatiana Istomina
22.04.2023
Emergency resident Oleksandr Sirous
AIR InSILo welcomes Oleksandr Sirous, who will be working in the residency on the 'Implicit Basis' project till the end of June 2023, together with Danil Siabro and Dmytro Tentiuk. The residence, a part of the Emergency Project of AIR InSILo, is supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport and facilitated by Artists at Risk (AR).
Oleksandr Sirous (b. 1996, Kharkiv) is a new media artist, performer, and sound artist living and working in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Sirous works with big data sets and the principles of interaction and communication in web environments and creates complex simulation environments using AI. His background in animation and comics has influenced his practice, leading to a constant search for a non-trivial approach to storytelling and composition in media works. Recently, because of his work with game engines, he has turned to video game culture, various game mechanics, and new rules of interaction, thus finding new approaches at the intersection of the already established practices in media art and video games.
Oleksandr Sirous (b. 1996, Kharkiv) is a new media artist, performer, and sound artist living and working in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Sirous works with big data sets and the principles of interaction and communication in web environments and creates complex simulation environments using AI. His background in animation and comics has influenced his practice, leading to a constant search for a non-trivial approach to storytelling and composition in media works. Recently, because of his work with game engines, he has turned to video game culture, various game mechanics, and new rules of interaction, thus finding new approaches at the intersection of the already established practices in media art and video games.
April 2023
Tatiana redefines, expands and intensifies the concept of technology, applying it to the practice of art making. In this context artworks is viewed as physical apparatuses, which mediate encounters between humans and the world to generate specific versions of reality. Her project uses insights from experimental physics and biosciences to develop a theoretical framework and a physical model of an art apparatus: a sculptural/pictorial device mapping out the borderline between the notions of a mechanism and a living organism. During the residency, Tatiana focused on the practices of hand embroidery, sculpture and fruit fly (drosophila) rearing. Drosophila research is the backbone of contemporary genetic and biological sciences, but it involves ethical and philosophical problems that are largely ignored today. Tatiana’s work touches on some of these problems, including the consciousness of the fly, the power dynamics between flies and humans, the extent of free will possessed by both species, and the conditions and limits of human knowledge about living nature.
Başak Tuna's DayLight Computer
In the new video for the InSilo Mag, Başak Tuna tells how she developed a project for the AIR InSilo Residency, that she called DayLight Computer. It is simply a computer screen that works in front of a window or on a sunny day instead of using the embedded electric light. A desktop screen that is resistant to function at night times. Technically speaking; the computer screen doesn’t need the LEDs inside in order to function. The LEDs are taken out of the screen and another window behind it is opened. The screen’s light source is now the environmental light or daylight.
"Light is separate from its use, yet it eliminates time and space factors in human association in cooperation with our smart personal devices. We are no longer in need of natural time reminders to shape our schedule like daylight; instead, we have access to it twenty-four hours and seven days a week. As a consequence, physical space around the device loses its significance because the device itself highlights the information on a specific surface by one specific light source.
Quite visibly, the pandemic has sharpened the disengagement with the city, public space, mobility and with physicality; we are left living more and more fixed but more connected to our light-emitting object networks that surround us. Even though there is no apparent physical labour, the work itself is the usage of the device, thus including being exposed to the device's blue light. As experienced by everybody, with or without notice, there is always more to do, and there is always the urge to keep doing things. We are busy all the time with our glowing devices. Where does human usership's agency start, and where does it end?"
"Light is separate from its use, yet it eliminates time and space factors in human association in cooperation with our smart personal devices. We are no longer in need of natural time reminders to shape our schedule like daylight; instead, we have access to it twenty-four hours and seven days a week. As a consequence, physical space around the device loses its significance because the device itself highlights the information on a specific surface by one specific light source.
Quite visibly, the pandemic has sharpened the disengagement with the city, public space, mobility and with physicality; we are left living more and more fixed but more connected to our light-emitting object networks that surround us. Even though there is no apparent physical labour, the work itself is the usage of the device, thus including being exposed to the device's blue light. As experienced by everybody, with or without notice, there is always more to do, and there is always the urge to keep doing things. We are busy all the time with our glowing devices. Where does human usership's agency start, and where does it end?"
18.04.2023
Emergency resident Danil Siabro
17.04.2023
AIR InSILo’s statement about the political situation in Lower Austria
As a Lower Austrian artist-in-residence program and artistic research laboratory with an international focus, with deep regret, we take into account the provisions of the new government agreement between the ÖVP and the FPÖ in Lower Austria. The substantial parts of the working agreement between ÖVP and FPÖ are in apparent conflict with our political and moral principles: cultural advancement only makes sense and is possible in the acceptance, exchange and cooperation of people of different origins, opinions, personal, religious and ideological convictions. We are condemning the proliferation of the political populism that obscures the hate speech, uses the notion of “neutrality” as a synonym for indifference, understands the educational, cultural and scientific program as retrotopia, and eventually shapes the largest federal state of Austria as a provincial backwater. We manifest that detestation, chauvinism, and any form of discrimination have no place in our residency and program. We will continue addressing the challenges of ecological crisis, questioning unjust labour conditions, developing decentralized and diverse communities, and reflecting sustainability in general and in art production. AIR InSILo stands for diversity, cultural exchange and cooperation.
April 2023
AIR InSILo welcomes Danil Siabro, who will be working in the residency on the 'Implicit Basis' project till the end of June 2023, together with Dmytro Tentiuk and Olexandr Sirous. The residence, a part of the Emergency Project of AIR InSILo, is supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport and facilitated by Artists at Risk (AR).
Danil Siabro (b. 1998 Mykolaiv) is an interdisciplinary artist, programmer and educator living and working in Kyiv, Ukraine. Being fascinated by historical, cinematic, fictional, gamified, decentralized aspects of technology, Siabro examines 'tools' from different perspectives and enjoys exploring them in connection to a larger context with a share of humour. Often created in collaborations, his works take the forms of videos, installations, and audiovisual performances, experiment with various new media and technology, and investigate connection with the digital world and reality, which day by day is getting thinner. AIR InSILo wishes Danil Siabro a fruitful and happy time in Lower Austria and sends BIRTHDAY GREETINGS!
If you want to support and donate to the Emergency Program of AIR InSILo, please find the links here.
Danil Siabro (b. 1998 Mykolaiv) is an interdisciplinary artist, programmer and educator living and working in Kyiv, Ukraine. Being fascinated by historical, cinematic, fictional, gamified, decentralized aspects of technology, Siabro examines 'tools' from different perspectives and enjoys exploring them in connection to a larger context with a share of humour. Often created in collaborations, his works take the forms of videos, installations, and audiovisual performances, experiment with various new media and technology, and investigate connection with the digital world and reality, which day by day is getting thinner. AIR InSILo wishes Danil Siabro a fruitful and happy time in Lower Austria and sends BIRTHDAY GREETINGS!
If you want to support and donate to the Emergency Program of AIR InSILo, please find the links here.
Art apparatus and the technology
of a (fruit fly) encounter
of a (fruit fly) encounter
17.02.2023
In February and March Tatiana Istomina will work on her project ‘Art apparatus and the technology of a (fruit fly) encounter.’ Tatiana wants to redefine, expand and intensify the concept of technology, applying it to the practice of art making. In this context artworks should be viewed as physical apparatuses, which mediate encounters between humans and the world to generate specific versions of reality. Her project uses insights from experimental physics and biosciences to develop a theoretical framework and a physical model of an art apparatus: a sculptural/pictorial device mapping out the borderline between the notions of a mechanism and a living organism. During the residency, Tatiana focuses on the practices of hand embroidery and fruit fly (drosophila) rearing. Drosophila research is the backbone of contemporary genetic and biological sciences, but it involves ethical and philosophical problems that are largely ignored today. Tatiana’s work will touch on some of these problems, including the consciousness of the fly, the power dynamics between flies and humans, the extent of free will possessed by both species, and the conditions and limits of human knowledge about living nature.
Survey: (Un)limited artistic resource
10.03.2023
AIR InSILo invites you to take part in a survey which aims to contextualise the upcoming open call 2023/24 (Un)limited Artistic Resource. As usual, AIR InSIlo will offer five fully paid slots and one emergency slot. Everyone who participates in the survey will receive an early reminder.
The Global COVID-19 pandemic, a full-scale war on the territory of Europe, and a devastating natural disaster in Syria and Turkey – are just a few examples that significantly exacerbated the life and work insecurity of people in general and artists/ cultural workers in particular during the last years. The conditions of artistic work can be described by the term 'precariat,' which means a newly formed class whose hallmark is a lack of job security, continuous search for employment (on average, one artist applies for 50-70 open calls, spending around up to 300 unpaid hours annually) and funding. The notion of artistic creativity continues to be romanticised to exploit the creators' pursuit of fame and success. It leads to the tragic stories of self-exploitations, burnout and severe inequality, where only 1-3% of successful artists get more than 50% of profits. AIR InSILo aims to create a space for reflection and self-reflection of an artist working in a neoliberal contemporaneity. What is more important: the time spent to master the work or the time given to fill in the open calls submissions; the ethical usage of materials or the belief in the dominant importance of artistic expression; a work for own name/ brand or work in the collective?
The Global COVID-19 pandemic, a full-scale war on the territory of Europe, and a devastating natural disaster in Syria and Turkey – are just a few examples that significantly exacerbated the life and work insecurity of people in general and artists/ cultural workers in particular during the last years. The conditions of artistic work can be described by the term 'precariat,' which means a newly formed class whose hallmark is a lack of job security, continuous search for employment (on average, one artist applies for 50-70 open calls, spending around up to 300 unpaid hours annually) and funding. The notion of artistic creativity continues to be romanticised to exploit the creators' pursuit of fame and success. It leads to the tragic stories of self-exploitations, burnout and severe inequality, where only 1-3% of successful artists get more than 50% of profits. AIR InSILo aims to create a space for reflection and self-reflection of an artist working in a neoliberal contemporaneity. What is more important: the time spent to master the work or the time given to fill in the open calls submissions; the ethical usage of materials or the belief in the dominant importance of artistic expression; a work for own name/ brand or work in the collective?
"ÁNOMOS, Or The Lawless Land"
In his project, Fernando Martín Velazco is trying to find remains of a mysterious nomadic society Zweibein-Federlos whose traces were registered in Weinviertel in the vicinity of Hollabrunn.
"ÁNOMOS, or the lawless land," is a multidisciplinary research project situated in an iconic agricultural area of Central Europe that imagines the environmental implications of the disintegration of the code that orders the land distribution among humans. Parting from an art-sci approach and using different technological tools, the project will imagine the Hollabrunn territory inhabited not by sedentary human collectivities but by nomad ones. This exercise imagines the territory before the establishment of any settlement but also identifies those 'heterotopian spaces' that exemplify in the present time the lawless condition of certain pieces of the land. Also, it reviews local legends that could give an account of the non-human presence and its resistance to the anthropogenic domain. The project aims to question the ethics behind the act of appropriation of the land and to propose a reflection on the conceptual basis that justify the instrumentation of non-human others and the contemporary forms of collective organization.
"ÁNOMOS, or the lawless land," is a multidisciplinary research project situated in an iconic agricultural area of Central Europe that imagines the environmental implications of the disintegration of the code that orders the land distribution among humans. Parting from an art-sci approach and using different technological tools, the project will imagine the Hollabrunn territory inhabited not by sedentary human collectivities but by nomad ones. This exercise imagines the territory before the establishment of any settlement but also identifies those 'heterotopian spaces' that exemplify in the present time the lawless condition of certain pieces of the land. Also, it reviews local legends that could give an account of the non-human presence and its resistance to the anthropogenic domain. The project aims to question the ethics behind the act of appropriation of the land and to propose a reflection on the conceptual basis that justify the instrumentation of non-human others and the contemporary forms of collective organization.
March 2023
DayLight Computer by Başak Tuna
Illustration: © Başak Tuna, 2021, Folding Screens. Broken computer screens, metal frame.
"How long is the daily cycle of a computer?"
For AIR InSilo Residency, Basak Tuna will develop, rethink and reproduce a project titled DayLight Computer. It is a computer screen that works in front of a window or on a sunny day instead of using the embedded electric light. In other words, a desktop screen that is resistant to function at night times. Technically speaking, the computer screen doesn’t need the LEDs inside in order to function. The artist took the LEDs out of the screen and opened another window behind it. The screen’s light source is now the environmental light or daylight.
At the end of the 3-week residency, Basak will complete the concept and realization of the resisting computer screen.
"How long is the daily cycle of a computer?"
For AIR InSilo Residency, Basak Tuna will develop, rethink and reproduce a project titled DayLight Computer. It is a computer screen that works in front of a window or on a sunny day instead of using the embedded electric light. In other words, a desktop screen that is resistant to function at night times. Technically speaking, the computer screen doesn’t need the LEDs inside in order to function. The artist took the LEDs out of the screen and opened another window behind it. The screen’s light source is now the environmental light or daylight.
At the end of the 3-week residency, Basak will complete the concept and realization of the resisting computer screen.
23.01.-15.02.2023
Autonomous Trees by Krzysztof Wronski
23-30.01.2023
Tree Centered Design Workshop with Krzysztof Wronski
At the Tree Centered Design Workshop, participants will react to known tree challenges as well as potential scenarios that threaten tree life and explore interventions with possible or imaginary social or technical developments. Working in small groups, they will share ideas with each other and develop a new scenario that will be communicated with workshop participants in the form of a short performance. No specific skills or experience are required other than curiosity and an openness to imagine new things. The workshop will be a guided step-by-step experience conducted in English.
*Tree Centered Design is a practice focused on inviting people to collaborate and collectively explore what a design or innovation process might look like if it was focused on the needs of trees (or other life) rather than human.
27.01.2023
Fr 19:00 – 20:30
Galerie grenzART,
Sparkassegasse 1, 2020 Hollabrunn
*Tree Centered Design is a practice focused on inviting people to collaborate and collectively explore what a design or innovation process might look like if it was focused on the needs of trees (or other life) rather than human.
27.01.2023
Fr 19:00 – 20:30
Galerie grenzART,
Sparkassegasse 1, 2020 Hollabrunn
27.01.2023
Autonomous Trees are living trees with enhanced agency and abilities, assisted by systems developed and operated by Krzysztof Wronski. Through prototypes and real-world interventions, trees are equipped with capabilities that primarily serve them and challenge relations between people and living systems struggling with the climate emergency.
A tree is presented as an authority figure serving the interests of non-humans. Physical symbolic artefacts and devices associated with human authority are installed on and around a local tree selected as a temporary agent. These represent industrial components utilised on autonomous vehicles and security apparatus. People, subjected to the tree's authority, can interact with the tree by accessing an arboreal chatbot on their phones. The chatbot enables a conversation between humans and trees — during which visitors hear the tree's perspective and receive an assessment and fine as punishment for the collective harm they cause to living systems.
A tree is presented as an authority figure serving the interests of non-humans. Physical symbolic artefacts and devices associated with human authority are installed on and around a local tree selected as a temporary agent. These represent industrial components utilised on autonomous vehicles and security apparatus. People, subjected to the tree's authority, can interact with the tree by accessing an arboreal chatbot on their phones. The chatbot enables a conversation between humans and trees — during which visitors hear the tree's perspective and receive an assessment and fine as punishment for the collective harm they cause to living systems.
A new emergency resident, Olga Pylnyk, will spend the upcoming three months working on her project "Festina Lente" – "Hurry Slowly", as translated from Latin. The artist ponders around the fast pace of life and its contemporary consumer model. In particular, in the field of fashion, that pushes a consumer to buy many times more clothes than in the last century and to wear them just a few times. Clothing acquires the status of "disposable". This model has a detrimental effect on the ecology of the planet. In her works, Olga focuses on enlarged textile weaves to demonstrate the beauty of fabrics from the inside and suggests the viewer love their clothes, not the shopping process. The gesture of hyperbolizing aims to raise attention to the problem and to propose a solution in the upcycling process.
1.09.- 30.11.2022
"Festina Lente" by Olga Pylnyk
"ÁNOMOS, or the lawless land"
20.09-1.11.2022
The first long-term resident of the round 2022/23 is starting to work on his proposal for AIR InSILo. "ÁNOMOS, or the lawless land", is a multidisciplinary research project situated in an iconic agricultural area of Central Europe that imagines the environmental implications of the disintegration of the code that orders the land distribution among humans. Parting from an art-sci approach and using different technological tools, the project will imagine the Hollabrunn territory inhabited not by sedentary human collectivities but by nomad ones. This exercise imagines the territory before the establishment of any settlement but also identifies those 'heterotopian spaces' that exemplify in the present time the lawless condition of certain pieces of the land. Also, it reviews local legends that could give an account of the non-human presence and its resistance to the anthropogenic domain. The project aims to question the ethics behind the act of appropriation of the land and to propose a reflection on the conceptual basis that justify the instrumentation of the non-human others and the contemporary forms of collective organization.
Open Studio Days 2022
During the Open Studio Days on the 15-16th of October 2022, one can
• see the new works by an emergency resident, Olga Pylnyk. The residence of Olga is supported by the AIR InSILo, Artists at Risk (AR), and the Ministry for Art and Culture grant in Austria.
• see the films by the first long-term resident of the round 2022/23, Fernando Martín Velazco.
• see the films by the artist and curator of AIR InSILo Ksenia Yurkova
• buy artwork from the residents: textiles, ceramics, affordable prints, and original artwork. 70% of the price goes to the artist, 30% to the maintenance of the AIR InSILo and the Emergency Program.
The ground floor is accessible for wheelchairs.
AIR InSILO,
Mitterweg 30, Hollabrunn
Oct 15, 16, 2022
Sat 14:00 – 18:00
Sun 14:00 – 18:00
• see the new works by an emergency resident, Olga Pylnyk. The residence of Olga is supported by the AIR InSILo, Artists at Risk (AR), and the Ministry for Art and Culture grant in Austria.
• see the films by the first long-term resident of the round 2022/23, Fernando Martín Velazco.
• see the films by the artist and curator of AIR InSILo Ksenia Yurkova
• buy artwork from the residents: textiles, ceramics, affordable prints, and original artwork. 70% of the price goes to the artist, 30% to the maintenance of the AIR InSILo and the Emergency Program.
The ground floor is accessible for wheelchairs.
AIR InSILO,
Mitterweg 30, Hollabrunn
Oct 15, 16, 2022
Sat 14:00 – 18:00
Sun 14:00 – 18:00
15-16.10.2022
20.07.2022
Application Round 2022/23
Results
HZWEIO
21.05 - 14.08.2022
A battery of six blue plastic barrels with a capacity of about two hundred litres each is mounted on top of the underground freshwater reservoir behind the Alte Hofmühle, exposed to direct sunlight. Each of the barrels contains approximately one hundred empty PET bottles, which are slightly squeezed and hermetically sealed again. The plastic bottles expand with increasing temperature and contract when the environment cools down. Expansion, as well as contraction, produce a glitch of clicking and popping noises on a low volume. Microphones pick up these sounds from within the barrels and transmit them to a speaker system in a public space.
The sonic pattern follows an algorithm entirely bound to the laws of nature, of a rhythm of day and night as well as of changes of temperature due to weather conditions – in the wide angle of the sun from east to west, which is tempering the entire landscape.
SAT 21 May - SUN 14 August 2022
2020 Hollabrunn, Mühlenring 2,
water reservoir behind the museum Alte Hofmühle.
A project in the frame of the Viertelfestival NÖ Weinviertel 2022. Supported by AIR InSILo and the Gemeinde Hollabrunn.
The sonic pattern follows an algorithm entirely bound to the laws of nature, of a rhythm of day and night as well as of changes of temperature due to weather conditions – in the wide angle of the sun from east to west, which is tempering the entire landscape.
SAT 21 May - SUN 14 August 2022
2020 Hollabrunn, Mühlenring 2,
water reservoir behind the museum Alte Hofmühle.
A project in the frame of the Viertelfestival NÖ Weinviertel 2022. Supported by AIR InSILo and the Gemeinde Hollabrunn.
This is Not-a-Game
The kick-off of the new round 2022/23 is made by David Sypniewski and Magda ‘Bronka‘ Braniewska, who, during the short-term residence slot, will start to work on their project ‘This is Not-a-Game,’ a comment on incremental games and their symbolism.
Incremental games make a perfect illustration of how modern marketing works. Based on deep knowledge of human atavisms, those games use our biological mechanisms that were designed by evolution to help us survive to a different, rather cynical cause – maximising income by increasing players’ impulsive consumption. Modern marketing also uses neuroscience to explore customer buying decisions and paths. The artists want to go back to the roots of the first clicker game, and go deeper into deconstruction, uncover how the market developed the original idea into a money-making machine. In other words: they want to create an honest version of an incremental game.
Incremental games make a perfect illustration of how modern marketing works. Based on deep knowledge of human atavisms, those games use our biological mechanisms that were designed by evolution to help us survive to a different, rather cynical cause – maximising income by increasing players’ impulsive consumption. Modern marketing also uses neuroscience to explore customer buying decisions and paths. The artists want to go back to the roots of the first clicker game, and go deeper into deconstruction, uncover how the market developed the original idea into a money-making machine. In other words: they want to create an honest version of an incremental game.
24-31.08.2022
Illustration: © Başak Tuna, 2021, Folding Screens
After one month of reading the applications, studying the proposals, and meeting the candidates, we are thrilled to announce new residents of AIR InSILo for the round 2022/ 2023! They are:
*Magdalena ‘Bronka’ Braniewska and David Sypniewski (Poland) – a short-term residence in August 2022
*Olha Pylnyk (Ukraine) – a three-months emergency residence in September/ November 2022
*Fernando Martín Velazco (Mexico) – a long-term residence in September/ October 2022
*Krzysztof Wronski (Denmark) – a short-term residence in January 2023
*Başak Tuna (Italy) – a mid-term residence in January/ February 2023
*Tatiana Istomina (United States) – a long-term residence in February/ March 2023
An extra emergency slot:
*Oleksandr Sirous, Igor Sokolov, Danil Siabro (Ukraine) – a three-month emergency residence in March – June 2023 – this project will be supported additionally.
The shortlisted artists are:
*Kexin Hong (The Netherlands)
*Justin Tyler Tate (Taiwan)
*Irena Borić (Slovenia)
All the shortlisted artists comprise the AIR InSILo network. They will have preferences in future open calls or/and be invited directly for future projects within the framework of AIR InSILo or its fellow institutions in Austria.
During this call, we received in total 97 applications from 38 countries.
After one month of reading the applications, studying the proposals, and meeting the candidates, we are thrilled to announce new residents of AIR InSILo for the round 2022/ 2023! They are:
*Magdalena ‘Bronka’ Braniewska and David Sypniewski (Poland) – a short-term residence in August 2022
*Olha Pylnyk (Ukraine) – a three-months emergency residence in September/ November 2022
*Fernando Martín Velazco (Mexico) – a long-term residence in September/ October 2022
*Krzysztof Wronski (Denmark) – a short-term residence in January 2023
*Başak Tuna (Italy) – a mid-term residence in January/ February 2023
*Tatiana Istomina (United States) – a long-term residence in February/ March 2023
An extra emergency slot:
*Oleksandr Sirous, Igor Sokolov, Danil Siabro (Ukraine) – a three-month emergency residence in March – June 2023 – this project will be supported additionally.
The shortlisted artists are:
*Kexin Hong (The Netherlands)
*Justin Tyler Tate (Taiwan)
*Irena Borić (Slovenia)
All the shortlisted artists comprise the AIR InSILo network. They will have preferences in future open calls or/and be invited directly for future projects within the framework of AIR InSILo or its fellow institutions in Austria.
During this call, we received in total 97 applications from 38 countries.
10.05.2022
Accelerating Degrowth
HZWEIO
21.05-14.08.2022
HZWEIO: a generative ecological sound installation by Martin Breindl and Bernhard Kathan at the water reservoir in Hollabrunn.
A battery of six blue plastic barrels with a capacity of about two hundred litres each is mounted on top of the underground freshwater reservoir behind the Alte Hofmühle, exposed to direct sunlight. Each of the barrels contains approximately one hundred empty PET bottles which are slightly squeezed and hermetically sealed again. The plastic bottles expand with increasing temperature and contract when the environment cools down. Expansion as well as contraction produce a glitch of clicking and popping noises on a low volume. Microphones pick up these sounds from within the barrels and transmit them to a speaker system in public space.
The sonic pattern follows an algorithm entirely bound to the laws of nature, of a rhythm of day and night as well as of changes of temperature due to weather conditions – in the wide angle of the sun from east to west, which is tempering the entire landscape.
Viertelfestival NÖ Weinviertel 2022
Opening: SAT May 21, 2022, 7 p.m
A battery of six blue plastic barrels with a capacity of about two hundred litres each is mounted on top of the underground freshwater reservoir behind the Alte Hofmühle, exposed to direct sunlight. Each of the barrels contains approximately one hundred empty PET bottles which are slightly squeezed and hermetically sealed again. The plastic bottles expand with increasing temperature and contract when the environment cools down. Expansion as well as contraction produce a glitch of clicking and popping noises on a low volume. Microphones pick up these sounds from within the barrels and transmit them to a speaker system in public space.
The sonic pattern follows an algorithm entirely bound to the laws of nature, of a rhythm of day and night as well as of changes of temperature due to weather conditions – in the wide angle of the sun from east to west, which is tempering the entire landscape.
Viertelfestival NÖ Weinviertel 2022
Opening: SAT May 21, 2022, 7 p.m
Illustration:
Alien Productions. Perpetuum Mobile. Airwaves, 2011. Foto © Sabine Maier
Instead of writing a lengthy statement, the curators of AIR InSILo decided to let the thoughts flow freely and used the form of a dialogue to meditate about current state of technology and the clash of two approaches, degrowth and acceleration. The full version of the debate “Accelerating Degrowth” is published in the InSILo Mag. We encourage everyone to read it before submitting the projects to the next call, which will be opened on May 15.
Alien Productions. Perpetuum Mobile. Airwaves, 2011. Foto © Sabine Maier
Instead of writing a lengthy statement, the curators of AIR InSILo decided to let the thoughts flow freely and used the form of a dialogue to meditate about current state of technology and the clash of two approaches, degrowth and acceleration. The full version of the debate “Accelerating Degrowth” is published in the InSILo Mag. We encourage everyone to read it before submitting the projects to the next call, which will be opened on May 15.
Open call for the 2022/2023 round
The AIR InSILo call for the round 2022/23 aims to meditate on the present state of technology. The task of the residence – which is a space, an entity, a future community that urges us to be aware of issues of consumption, energy, climate, and equality in a non-capitalist way – is to provide a proper environment that can maximally render the potential of the invited artists. But if we speak about technology, which strategy to choose? We focus on and put the clash of two approaches, degrowth and acceleration, in the centre of our discussion.
15.05-20.06.2022
Bodies in Resonance
In the new video for the InSilo Mag, Ksenia Yurkova talks about how the theory of affect influences her artistic practice and how she is trying to expand the understanding of affects through the artistic means of photography, video, and performance. She touches upon the notions of identity shaped by trauma, neuroplasticity, and radical transformation and how all of these can help in her performative interactions with those who suffered political violence.
The artist talk took place at the Improper Walls gallery space in Vienna on March 18, 2022.
The artist talk took place at the Improper Walls gallery space in Vienna on March 18, 2022.
18.03.2022
Becoming One, Being Plural
31.01.2022
Funds collected for the Emergency Program
We are continuing to fundraise for the Emergency Program of AIR InSILo. During March and April, the residence is hosting and subsidising artists and cultural workers: Tereza Barabash and her son (Lviv, UA), Yuliia Pendrak and her daughter (Lviv, UA), Daria Hetmanova (Mariupol, UA).
We are thankful to our donors - private individuals and public institutions! But we need your further help to continue supporting those fleeing war.
To run the Emergency Program, we need 1700 Euros per person monthly. To help us, you can purchase artworks from the online store of AIR InSILo. You can subscribe to the PATREON or donate directly via PayPal. All the links - via the button.
We are thankful to our donors - private individuals and public institutions! But we need your further help to continue supporting those fleeing war.
To run the Emergency Program, we need 1700 Euros per person monthly. To help us, you can purchase artworks from the online store of AIR InSILo. You can subscribe to the PATREON or donate directly via PayPal. All the links - via the button.
5.04.2022
April 2022:
1770
Euros
1770
Euros
In the new video for the InSILo Magazine, the artist Jungeun Lee speaks about her installation 'Becoming One, Being Plural' that visualises and sonifies the relations between microorganisms and humans. In AIR InSILo, the artist researched various types of water sources such as lakes, rivers, and swamps and built ecospheres, to convert the movement of microorganisms into sound and amplify them in order to give a voice to many of those unheard and invisible. In a time when our planet is threatened, the ecosphere represents a contemporary oasis. These ecosystems work like time-capsules: they contain dormant resources and myriad other species with whom we share life on this planet; they contain enormous biodiversity and are inhabited by numerous plant and animal species and various communities of living microorganisms. The work will be presented in November 2022, in FLUC Wien.
Artists Szymon Kula and Jennetta Petch are speaking about their research around the boundaries of sustainability of artistic production and showing the results of an ongoing project that was started in rural France, in Embrun, over the winter of 2020 and was continued in AIR InSILo in winter 2021. The project is carried out by the investigation of how one can use materials to adapt to the chaos of the environmental crisis and what materials can do to help us to exist and even thrive in a chaotic world, as well as how making can provide a sense of structure in time and space.
At AIR InSILo, Kula & Petch expand the vocabulary of ancient processes and modern techniques; they research local crafts and incorporate them into their practice, creating hybrid objects that are a product of different localities, difficult to anchor in a particular time period, drawing on historical references from a perspective of the future. The special focus is put on upcycling, recycling and repurposing to create multilayered installations.
At AIR InSILo, Kula & Petch expand the vocabulary of ancient processes and modern techniques; they research local crafts and incorporate them into their practice, creating hybrid objects that are a product of different localities, difficult to anchor in a particular time period, drawing on historical references from a perspective of the future. The special focus is put on upcycling, recycling and repurposing to create multilayered installations.
16.02.2022
Boundaries of sustainability interview
TIST Collective - new artists-in-residence
05.-13.03.2022
In March 2022, AIR InSILo hosts a collective of two artists/ curators, Yulia Tikhomirova and Michele Liparesi - TIST (This Is So Temporary) from Bologna, Italy. TIST manifests the necessity to build a creative, open and inclusive artistic process outside of traditional, institutional and, alas! capitalistic system of production.
The artist-run space TIST is situated in an old fabric shed in an industrial peripheral zone of the city and offers studios for young artists, an exposition space, a community garden, workshop facilities and a leisure zone. The project grew up out of disagreement with the continuous and growing concentration of art production in the hands of a few institutions financed both by public and private money, where the same small group of people, in practice, decide what contemporary art should be and exclude any possibility to differentiate the discourse, the content and the politics of art.
The artist-run space TIST is situated in an old fabric shed in an industrial peripheral zone of the city and offers studios for young artists, an exposition space, a community garden, workshop facilities and a leisure zone. The project grew up out of disagreement with the continuous and growing concentration of art production in the hands of a few institutions financed both by public and private money, where the same small group of people, in practice, decide what contemporary art should be and exclude any possibility to differentiate the discourse, the content and the politics of art.
Degrees -
A Solo Exhibition by Ksenia yurkova
A Solo Exhibition by Ksenia yurkova
On March 9, Ksenia Yurkova is opening her personal exhibition in the frames of FOTO WIEN Festival.
On a junction of theory and art practice, through the means of photography and moving image, the project DEGREES (2021) dives into the framework of contemporary affect theory and approaches the question on personal, collective, and transitive levels. At every stage, the work is challenged to find artistic means of expression of the concept, which is considered to be undetectable directly.
Improper Walls Gallery,
Reindorfgasse 42, Wien
Vernissage Mar 9, 2022, 18:00
Exhibition Mar 10 – Mar 25
Wed, Thu, Fri 15:00 – 19:00
Friday, Mar 18 – Artist talk
10-25.03.2022
<Biotope- Metamorphic Symbiosis> by Jungeun Lee
The first long-term resident of 2022 is Jungeun Lee, who is working on her Biotope- Metamorphic Symbiosis installation that visualizes and sonifies the relations between microorganisms and humans. In AIR InSILo, the artist plans to research various types of water sources such as lakes, rivers, and swamps and build ecospheres, to convert the movement of microorganisms into sound and amplify them. Movements and vitality of snails scratching moss on the wall, hydra hanging upside down on the plants using long tentacles, and stone leech hunting for food larger than their bodies will be collected by using motion tracking and transferred to the audience through an amplifier. The project takes a challenge to give a voice to many of those unheard and invisible. When our planet is threatened, the ecosphere represents a contemporary oasis. These ecosystems are like time capsules. The ecosphere contains dormant resources and myriad other species with whom we share life on this planet. They contain enormous biodiversity and are inhabited by numerous plant and animal species and various communities of living microorganisms.
Martin Breindl/ Bernhard Kathan, HZWEIO
Martin Breindl‘s and Bernhard Kathan‘s new version of their generative sound installation HZWEIO at the festival minus20degree in Flachau, Salzburg, from Jan. 20th to 22nd, 2022: A sculpture consisting of six-blue plastic barrels with a capacity of about two hundred litres each is set up in front of the local church in Flachau, exposed to direct sunlight. Each of the barrels contains about one hundred empty PET bottles, which are slightly pinched and hermetically sealed again. The plastic bottles expand with increasing temperature and contract when the environment cools down. Expansion as well as contraction produce a variety of click and plop noises [glitch] on a low volume. Microphones pick up these sounds from within the barrels and transmit them to a loudspeaker system in a public space. The sonic pattern follows an algorithm entirely bound to the laws of nature, of a rhythm of day and night as well as of changes in temperature due to weather conditions.
9-31.01.2022
open studio days Report
20.12.2021
During the Open Studio Days X-Mas in AIR InSILo, artists Szymon Kula and Jennetta Petch presented their latest work, The Boundaries of Sustainability which was accomplished during six weeks of the residence. The full photo documentation is available on the page of the project.
20-22.01.2022
12.11.2021
November Fundraising
How the
world works interview
world works interview
29.11.2021
How the World Works by Maria Safronova Wahlström and Johannes Wahlström intend to describe the rapidly changing world that we and our societies are surrounded by, and that became more visible in connection with the pandemic. How the World Works is based on the UN Sustainability Goals 2030 and interviews of the people active in the fields affected by the proposed changes. The answers will form the basis for a series of graphic works that playfully highlight the topics that we all too often resign ourselves to considering too complicated to understand. The project aims to connect the research on current political and economic issues with a simple and playful graphic form, which can be exhibited and distributed in art contexts and schools.
The full version of the interview is available only to the PATRONS
The full version of the interview is available only to the PATRONS
open studio days X-Mas
Open Studio Days X-Mas in AIR InSILo
18-19th of December 2021, in Hollabrunn.
• a sneak peek to the artists' studios of Szymon Kula and Jennetta Petch
• new artworks by the residence artists: from the affordable prints to the original pieces (visit our online store to choose)
• glühwein by AIR InSilo
Opening hours: 18, 19 December 2021
- 14 to 17
The ground floor is accessible for wheelchairs
18-19th of December 2021, in Hollabrunn.
• a sneak peek to the artists' studios of Szymon Kula and Jennetta Petch
• new artworks by the residence artists: from the affordable prints to the original pieces (visit our online store to choose)
• glühwein by AIR InSilo
Opening hours: 18, 19 December 2021
- 14 to 17
The ground floor is accessible for wheelchairs
18-19.12.2021
When we reach the sum of 5100 Euros, we can invite our first guest artist to become a part of the emergency programme. The minimum stay of the artist is for three months.
To host one artist for three months, we need a budget of:
1. An independent space to live and work (possible together with the family)
as an in-kind contribution of AIR InSilo
2. Covered travel (300 Euros within Europe, 600 Euros -- from the outside of Europe)
3. Transport (300 Euros for three months)
4. Artistic fee (1950 Euros for three months)
5. Material costs/ Production money (1050 Euros for three months)
6. Operational costs (600 Euros per three months)
7. Curator's/ assistant's fee (600 Euros per three months)
TOTAL: 5100 Euros -- or 1700 Euros per month which we need to collect to invite our first guest.
Become a PATRON today
To host one artist for three months, we need a budget of:
1. An independent space to live and work (possible together with the family)
as an in-kind contribution of AIR InSilo
2. Covered travel (300 Euros within Europe, 600 Euros -- from the outside of Europe)
3. Transport (300 Euros for three months)
4. Artistic fee (1950 Euros for three months)
5. Material costs/ Production money (1050 Euros for three months)
6. Operational costs (600 Euros per three months)
7. Curator's/ assistant's fee (600 Euros per three months)
TOTAL: 5100 Euros -- or 1700 Euros per month which we need to collect to invite our first guest.
Become a PATRON today
Scoby Spin Cycle
The first OPEN CALL artist of AIR InSILo is Mary Maggic who, during the last week in October, will work on the SCOBY SPIN CYCLE. It is a post-anthropocentric performative art installation and absurd machine object that optimizes the industrial production of SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) made from a kombucha bioreactor that is kept in constant rotation by the physical and demanding labour of a human subject on a gym exercise machine. The project reflects on the role of technology in human and non-human relationships of resource extraction and exploitation and human technological desires for fitness, perfection, and optimization. Can feminist practices of care and kinship re-insert the necessary intimacy within multi-species relationships that have been largely and historically driven by capitalism?
23-31.10.2021
open studio
days
Report
days
Report
16-17.10.2021
long-term residents Jennetta Petch and Szymon Kula
During the residency, the artists will continue their research around the boundaries of sustainability of artistic production by developing an ongoing project that was started in rural France, in Embrun, over the winter of 2020. It will be carried out by the investigation of how one can use materials to adapt to the chaos of the environmental crisis and what materials can do to help us to exist and even thrive in a chaotic world, as well as how making can provide a sense of structure in time and space.
9.11-20.12.2021
Plane Catcher/ Flugzeug-fallen
by Martin Breindl
by Martin Breindl
AIR InSILo’s artist and curator Martin Breindl will present his project Plane Catcher, an installation consisting of fifty-five assemblages of model aeroplanes and irons and a video projection (shot and edited by Ksenia Yurkova), created between 2018 and 2021. Plane Catcher is an impulsive alphabet, a system of signs washed up from childhood against the background of a higher law that brings art theory and practices into harmony. The whole series will be displayed for the first time in the barn of the very house where Martin grew up – and now AIR InSilo – putting all the past debris into order like after a plane crash.
open studio days and Emergency
Program
Program
During the Open Studio Days on the 16-17th of October 2021, one can become a supporter of the Emergency Program of AIR InSILo by
• buying artwork from the residents: from the affordable prints to the original artwork (see the catalogues). 70% of the price goes to the artist, 30% to the maintenance of the AIR InSILo and the Emergency Program
• buying organic goods from the garden of AIR InSilo
• becoming a Patron of the Emergency Program
• inviting your friends and spreading the word
• buying artwork from the residents: from the affordable prints to the original artwork (see the catalogues). 70% of the price goes to the artist, 30% to the maintenance of the AIR InSILo and the Emergency Program
• buying organic goods from the garden of AIR InSilo
• becoming a Patron of the Emergency Program
• inviting your friends and spreading the word
16-17.10.2021
All Nonsense Cancels Itself
09.10.2021
In AIR InSILo, the invited artist and writer Bernhard Kathan will work on his sound piece All Nonsense Cancels Itself, which will be presented during the Open Studio Days on 16-17 October. The piece is dedicated to Daniel Paul Schreber (1842 - 1911), who is considered the most prominent case in the history of psychiatry thanks to his book Memoirs of My Nervous Illness. Among many others, Sigmund Freud, C.G. Jung, Elias Canetti, Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari occupied themselves with his bizarre imagery.
It is commonly thought that doctors are trying to understand the patients. Kathan reveals that Schreber's story teaches us the opposite: in fact, the patients are required to understand the doctors who are treating them.
Kathan recontextualizes the Memoirs of My Nervous Illness and, by means of sound and graphic art, reveals meaning in the chaos. By refusing to see Schreber as a "case", just a madman, he points out that the patient to facilitate his doctors was by purpose producing all the signs he was expected to.
It is commonly thought that doctors are trying to understand the patients. Kathan reveals that Schreber's story teaches us the opposite: in fact, the patients are required to understand the doctors who are treating them.
Kathan recontextualizes the Memoirs of My Nervous Illness and, by means of sound and graphic art, reveals meaning in the chaos. By refusing to see Schreber as a "case", just a madman, he points out that the patient to facilitate his doctors was by purpose producing all the signs he was expected to.
16-17.10.2021
Finally, the selection is done, and we are happy to announce the first residents of AIR InSILo! They are:
• Mary Maggic (Austria) for the short-term residence in October 2021
• Szymon Kula and Jennetta Petch (Poland/ UK) for the long-term residence in November – December 2021
• Hung-Fei Wu (Taiwan) for the long-term residence in January – February 2022
Due to the very high quality of the submissions, we made an exception and launched an additional slot for
• the TIST Collective /Yulia Tikhomirova and Michele Liparesi/ (Italy) for the short-term residence in March 2022
The shortlisted artists
• Marina Shamova (Russia)
• Damla Yalçin (Turkey)
• Jungeun Lee (South Korea)
• Oksana Rudko (Russia)
• Elena Redaelli (Italy)
• Laura Fernandez Antolin (Spain)
• Juan Gugger (France)
• eeefff (Belarus/ Russia)
will form the waiting list of AIR InSILo and will have preferences in the future open calls or/and will be invited directly for the future projects within the framework of AIR InSILo or its fellow institutions in Austria.
This year, we have received 22 applications for short-term residence and 114 applications for long-term residence from 47 countries.
• Mary Maggic (Austria) for the short-term residence in October 2021
• Szymon Kula and Jennetta Petch (Poland/ UK) for the long-term residence in November – December 2021
• Hung-Fei Wu (Taiwan) for the long-term residence in January – February 2022
Due to the very high quality of the submissions, we made an exception and launched an additional slot for
• the TIST Collective /Yulia Tikhomirova and Michele Liparesi/ (Italy) for the short-term residence in March 2022
The shortlisted artists
• Marina Shamova (Russia)
• Damla Yalçin (Turkey)
• Jungeun Lee (South Korea)
• Oksana Rudko (Russia)
• Elena Redaelli (Italy)
• Laura Fernandez Antolin (Spain)
• Juan Gugger (France)
• eeefff (Belarus/ Russia)
will form the waiting list of AIR InSILo and will have preferences in the future open calls or/and will be invited directly for the future projects within the framework of AIR InSILo or its fellow institutions in Austria.
This year, we have received 22 applications for short-term residence and 114 applications for long-term residence from 47 countries.
30.09.2021
Residents' Selection
How the
world works
world works
04.10.2021
How the World Works by Maria Safronova Wahlström and Johannes Wahlström intends to describe the rapidly changing world that we and our societies are surrounded by; and that became more visible in connection with the pandemic. How the World Works is based on the UN Sustainability Goals 2030 and interviews of the people active in the fields affected by the proposed changes. The answers will form the basis for a series of graphic works that playfully highlight the topics that we all too often resign ourselves to considering too complicated to understand. The project aims to connect the research on current political and economic issues with a simple and playful graphic form, which can be exhibited and distributed in art contexts as well as in schools.
open studio days
Open Studio Days in AIR InSILo
16-17th of October 2021, in Hollabrunn.
• the novel residency space in Hollabrunn
• an exhibition "Flugzeugfallen" by Martin Breindl in assistance by Ksenia Yurkova
• a sound-piece "Aller Unsinn hebt sich auf" by the resident of AIR InSILo, artist and philosopher, Bernhard Kathan
• artworks by the residence artists: from the affordable prints to the original artwork (download the full catalogue at in-silo.com)
• organic goods from the garden of AIR InSilo
Opening hours: 16, 17 October 2021 - 14 to 18
The ground floor is accessible for the wheel-chair
16-17th of October 2021, in Hollabrunn.
• the novel residency space in Hollabrunn
• an exhibition "Flugzeugfallen" by Martin Breindl in assistance by Ksenia Yurkova
• a sound-piece "Aller Unsinn hebt sich auf" by the resident of AIR InSILo, artist and philosopher, Bernhard Kathan
• artworks by the residence artists: from the affordable prints to the original artwork (download the full catalogue at in-silo.com)
• organic goods from the garden of AIR InSilo
Opening hours: 16, 17 October 2021 - 14 to 18
The ground floor is accessible for the wheel-chair
16-17.10.2021
Martin Breindl, Flugzeugfalle #19 Der rote Baron, 2019
Foto: Ksenia Yurkova
Foto: Ksenia Yurkova
Long-term residency open-call
The inauguration call of AIR InSilo is inspired by the ideas of Leopold Kohr (1909 – 1994), a prominent but underrated Austrian philosopher, whose concept ‘Small is Beautiful’ has saturated the thinking of subsequent researchers and influenced the notions of decentralization with inclinations to localism and post-development theory, degrowth theory, bioregionalism, and a principle of sustainability.
15.08-15.09.2021
Short-term residency open-call
Understanding artistic creation as a basic need, we are inviting artists, curators, and researchers to contribute their thoughts and energy to conceptualise the takes on the sustainability of individuum’s lives and ethical challenges and boundaries of sustainability of artistic production; to think of artistic production as non-commodity; to imagine alternative economic systems to sustain artistic production; to define boundaries of living space and workspace, leisure time and work time; to meditate on open-source appropriate technologies and open-design; to find the ways of collaborations of disjoint decentralized communities.
15.08-15.09.2021
Patreon
for the emergency Program
for the emergency Program
The Patreon page of AIR InSilo is dedicated to the emergency programme (in collaboration with the international programme Artists at Risk). Its goal is to host artists in critical life situations, as well as to invite and host artists who had lost their income or who suffer difficult life circumstances due to the crisis. The residency aims to focus its attention on female artists with children, on artists from countries where governments didn’t allocate sufficient support programs, and primarily on the ones who suffer persecution from the home country governments.
01.06.2021
to the call
to the call
Cinema Week and AIR InSilo Pre-launch Party
27.12.2020-03.01.2021
visit of Question Me & Answer Collective
03.07.2021
interview with the curator of AIR InSilo
-by Justina Špeirokaité
(Curator at Improper Walls)
My personal interest about the cultural scene in Russia and how it is influenced by politics, was growing for some time, especially after the last summer events in Belarus. And although Belarus and Russia are countries neighboring my home land Lithuania, I realise I know almost nothing of what art and culture breath there.
To find out more, I decided to talk to Ksenia Yurkova, a curator and artist, who recently moved to Austria, and can tell us more about it based on her own experiences.
(Curator at Improper Walls)
My personal interest about the cultural scene in Russia and how it is influenced by politics, was growing for some time, especially after the last summer events in Belarus. And although Belarus and Russia are countries neighboring my home land Lithuania, I realise I know almost nothing of what art and culture breath there.
To find out more, I decided to talk to Ksenia Yurkova, a curator and artist, who recently moved to Austria, and can tell us more about it based on her own experiences.
28.02.2021
QM&A wants to shorten the process of network-building and foster exchange between artists who have been based in Vienna for a long time and those who have newly arrived. Active network-building constitutes a vital aspect of this initiative, which is achieved by various programs and events.
An informal pre-opening for the friends and everyone interested.
Since we are still facing some Corona restrictions, we decided to prolong the pre-launch party for one week. And created time-slots to make it maximum comfortable and safe.
Since we are still facing some Corona restrictions, we decided to prolong the pre-launch party for one week. And created time-slots to make it maximum comfortable and safe.
Tilda Publishing
