Art Projects

Projects by international and local artists make up the heart of HAMBURG MASCHINE. For a limited time only, these projects will be on view in various neighborhoods throughout the city. The overarching theme of the two-year programme is digitality as a new form of twenty-first century culture. The projects are dedicated to questions of work, ecology and activism; they also examine religion and urbanism. Their public placement incorporates the environment and creates site-specificity. The city no longer remains a stage for interventions or events, but becomes itself a "machinic assemblage" of our digital era (Félix Guattari).

AnneMarie Maes (Brussels) is setting up a digitally extended beehive in Entenwerder with a colony of around 10,000 to 12,000 bees (opening 1 May 2019, 3 pm). An identical counterpart is located in a roof garden in Brussels. Data and images of both beehives, visible in a display case in the Golden Pavilion, will be exchanged via Internet.

Martina Raponi (Amsterdam) is staying for 6 weeks in the artist's studio Studio One in Westwerk and is researching for the project "Schulterplayy", which she is realizing with her noiserr method. A fictitious but personalized playlist of the favorite music of employees and customers* of the publicly accessible shop level of Schulterplayy is streamed via Spotify. In a remix event, she will present her project on 7 May, 19:30, at the Westwerk. On August 30th from 5 pm she will lead a public "Algorhythm March" from Schulterblatt to Westwerk.

John Gerrard (Dublin and Vienna) shows a video simulation of a historical oil landscape. A large black plume of smoke is waving from a digitally simulated flagpole in a digitally simulated landscape in Spindletop, Texas. The image shows the day and night conditions live in Texas local time. A global picture of the exploitation of raw materials and carbon dioxide emissions has been created.

[M] Dudeck (Winnipeg and Rome) presents his "Religious Virus" in a sermon performance in the main church of St. Catherine in a temple of artistry, which is accessible via the Internet with Avatar. Comic-like, analogous drawings tell of the complexity of his queer religion in the form of a comic book and various stained glass windows. A parade through public space followed by an exhibition of the performance relics round off the event on September 22, 2019.

Manuel Beltrán (The Hague) is an artist, net activist and founder of the "Institute of Human Obsolescence". His time-critical commitment is dedicated to artistic reflection on often opaque infrastructures in the digital age. From now on ad.watch is online, a website that analyses the redistribution of political advertising on the Internet. Beltrán also presents "Cartographies of Propaganda", the data sets of ad.watch, in an extensive art installation in Hamburg.