Partner: Kultursymposium Weimar, I: project space, Berliner Senat
Opening: 31.08.2019, 14:00
Duration of the exhibition: 31.08 - 28.09.2019, 12:00 – 18:00, closed on Monday
Guided tours by the artists: 01/21/22. September, 14:00, 15:00
Artists: Marco Buetikofer, Lotte Meret Effinger
Language: English, Chinese
Venue: Goethe-Institut China
Address: Originality Square, 798 Art District, Jiuxianqiao Road 2, Chaoyang District, Beijing
Free Admission

From August 31 to September 28, 2019, Datafiction - An experimental video game by Marco Buetikofer and Lotte Meret Effinger will be presented in the Grey Cube at the Goethe-Institut China in “798 Art District”. “Datafiction” reflects the influence of technologies on everyday practices and modes of social behavior. The project has been made possible as part of the artist-in-residence programme of the Goethe-Institut China and was first featured at the Kultursymposium Weimar in June 2019.

Technology seems like a tool of for the enforcement of established power structures, but it also reflects our society and the history that created it. We are in a state of realization, about the complexity of our environment and the scope of the consequences of our actions. The changing of societies on local and global scales requires new attempts at critically negotiating identity, politics and power relations in the production of technology.

The experimental video game Datafiction aims to explore an alternative narration about the effects of data-production and consumption. Roleplaying as an immaterial digital entity, the players will flow trough protocols, software and data-centers encountering personal memories, fragments of research material, music and spam that constitutes a scattered narrative.

Datafiction wants to contribute to a critical debate that is embedded in social constructions and emotional experiences and which demands constant renavigation with the help of different perspectives: author and curator Agnieszka Roguski speaks about modes of self-expression in the digital society; psychologist and neuroscientist David Rudrauf describes his current research, a mathematical model of embodied consciousness; media artist Baruch Gottlieb and researcher Stephanie Holl-Trieu revisit their study of cyber intelligence and civil societies between comparing developments in China and in the West.

Datafiction is an interdisciplinary group project in favor of collaboration in the age of globalization and digitization. It is initiated by Marco Buetikofer and Lotte Meret Effinger and involves the music producers 33EMYBW, Aleksei Podat, ASJ, noctilucents, Sabiwa, Stasya and Wanton Witch for the soundtrack. They are activists in a virtual community which utilizes new tools to fight for a cultural exchange beyond the political constraints of nation-states.

Marco Buetikofer (*1989, CH) and Lotte Meret Effinger (*1985, DE) work multi - and interdisciplinary, their collaborations include video productions, installations and performances. At the center of their artistic practice is the analysis of digital technologies and its effect on society and economic dynamics. The artist duo creates spaces in which mechanical and biological life meet to explore the boundaries between the digital and the physical environment. In autumn 2018, Lotte Meret Effinger lived and worked in Beijing for three months as artist-in-residence of the Goethe-Institut China.

Datafiction -
An experimental video game by Marco Buetikofer and Lotte Meret Effinger
Soundtrack: 33EMYBW, Aleksei Podat, ASJ, noctilucents, Sabiwa, Stasya, Wanton Witch
Interviews with Agnieszka Roguski, Baruch Gottlieb, David Rudrauf, Stephanie Holl-Trieu
Engineering / Sounddesign: Christian Berkes
Speakers: Jeff Yiu, Johanna Schaefer, Jessica Segall, Jo Wanneng, Megan Hogan
Copy Editing: Miriam Stoney

Accompanying Programme:
Workshop “skin-deepfake”
Time: 08.09.2019, 13:45 – 15:15
Partner: Independent Art Space (IAS) Festival, I: project space
Directed by: Lotte Meret Effinger, Marco Buetikofer
Venue: I: project space
Language: English, Chinese
RSVP through official I: project space WeChat account