Wasteland - Exhibition Fungus Socialis

Within this group exhibition, WASTELAND invites thirteen artists rooted in different practices and fields to come together under the topic of the “Fungus socialis” to reimagine waste materials collectively and offer an outlook into a world in which we see waste through a different lens. Each artist provides an individual approach to working with thrown-away materials in the physical, digital, and metaphysical space. In their works, the artists mediate between the materials' past, present, and future and give fertile soil to fuel them with new meanings. Through video, sculpture, installation, sound, smell, and design, the participating artists allow the visitors to experience the diversity and materiality of waste.

“Fungus socialis,” reimagines artists and the cultural community as a critical part of the societal ecosystem by engaging within their practice with waste and using the leftovers of society as resources and inspiration for their works. Similarly, this is what the mushrooms and their mycelial network do through “hyphae.” By hyphae, mycelium breaks down and absorbs surrounding organic matter into nutrients that can be absorbed and used as nourishment. Mycelia make up a critical part of their ecosystems by aiding in the decomposition and regeneration process. Reimagining this regenerative process in our current societies is what “Fungus socialis” aims for and brings nourishment to societies' drained soils.

The exhibition reimagines The Grey Space in the Middle as a WASTELAND, full of looming mountains of trash and debris inhabited by the visions and creations of the participating artists. Next to finished creations, the exhibition will allow visitors to repurpose materials in the space to contribute to the show to reassemble the growing and ever-changing form of mycelia networks. In “Fungus socialis” the finished works are nods of knowledge and interest of the artists and offer inspiration to new creations. Like mycelial networks, the exhibition space will be in constant growth and flux through this process-based approach. The exhibition is growing and learning through interdependent paths, interwoven through the material the works are produced of - waste, trash, debris, and leftovers.

Welcome to WASTELAND, a 12-day transdisciplinary festival on waste ecologies. Within the frame of the festival, exhibition, symposium, and workshops meet in one space to experience, learn and make collectively. Following the saying “one person's trash is another person's treasure,” WASTELAND puts the spot on trash, highlights the objects and products we throw away daily, and creates a space of potential to rethink our current relationship to waste. By creating a vibrant hub for interdisciplinary learning, the public can overcome their disgust and encounter the beauty of trash. WASTELAND creates a multisensory experience where the visitor can feel, see, smell, hear, touch, learn, and understand waste and its consequences.

Digital Debris is an artwork in the Fungus Socialis exhibition which is the result of the collective effort and reflection of Galerie de Jaloezie, the artists who sent in their found footage video’s to the open call, the creators of the original footage that is recycled, everyone involved in the productionprocess of the hardware of this installation, and ultimately the earth for providing the raw materials.

Digital Debris is a one channel 20-screen videoinstallation comprised of new montages of ‘waste’ footage. By showing how new edits can place the material in a different context and create new meanings, it forms a re-appreciation of this visual waste material. The 20 screens that simultaneously play the same video-input, symbolize the excessive overload of visual content that continues to multiply exponentially and ultimately sediments into archaeological layers of digital debris. Whereas creating moving image in analogue times was a huge enterprise that needed heavy and expensive machines and a very particular skillset, creating audiovisual material now has never been easier. Consequently there is a bulk of audiovisual ‘waste’ material, reaching from video’s in formal archives, scenes that never made it into the film, youtube uploads with three views, never-watched CCTV footage, to forgotten video’s on our smartphone’s cameraroll. Meanwhile technological developments take place at such a rate that hardware stops being relevant before it reaches the end of its lifespan. In this installation a series of 20 superannuated Fujitsu Siemens computer screens is used. The information sticker at the back teaches us these SCENIC VIEW B15-S1 screens were produced in China and distributed in Germany, but the origins of the raw materials must be in dispersed mines around the world. Now the 15” screens (1024x768 pixels) are no longer considered the ‘SCENIC VIEW’ that the productname implies, which is probably why they were sold in bulk for a dump prize.

This installation reflects on the origins and use-life of these electronics, evokes a re-appreciation for no-longer-relevant technology, and prevents these screens from becoming waste. Consider it as an homage to all the material stages it went through, and all the immaterial information that went through it.

Involuntary Kindship - Noah Heylen I spread an AI-generated poem across eight different CCTV-cameras I hacked. Each owner reacted to their part in a different way, not knowing the underlying connection to the other cameras, nor my work. Because of those alterations, the work crumbled into a digital ruin in the following weeks. The cameras are just held together by the video now. Noah Heylen My name is Noah Heylen (he/him), I'm a student at the media art department of KASK Ghent. In my artistic practice I am focusing on imagery, video and AI. The work I make revolves around our society itself and our relationship with different media. For the last few months, I have been making work with CCTV-footage I collect.

Becoming - Belen Resinikowski A tribute to women through history, its sensuality, struggle, and knowledge, to be water to be air, to become a woman. Belen Resinikowski BelenResnikowski 1989. La Paz -Bolivia, currently studying arts at Kunsthochshuleweisensee in Berlin.

Gateway to the North - Sarah Saleh This sentiment of nostalgia and fear of forgetfulness is due to the sense of loss and displacement, a feeling of going back to a specific space and time. How to get rid of this so-called ‘historical emotion’ that forbids us to move forward when I crave the sound, chaos, and warmth of Lebanon? How to experience my mind and body to the present moment? How to intersect my memory of the past and imagination of the future to come together in the present? Gateway to the North describes how my life has been in-between places, finding a home and a sense of belonging in the Netherlands. Sarah Saleh Sarah Saleh is a visual artist and DJ from Lebanon based in Amsterdam recently graduated from the Sandberg Instituut. She works with personal archives and field recordings to create multichannel installations. Her collages have been featured in L’Orient Le jour and Selections Art Magazine. Sarah performs with Claartje under ‘Saar and Claar’ as monthly residents at Radio Oedipus.

The Pill - Celine Caly x Andrea Galano Torry x Merle Findhammer How are we able to communicate the dangers of nuclear waste disposal to future generations in over 100 thousand years, when all our communication system doesn’t exist anymore? Situated between poetic fiction and speculative promotional video from the past, “The Pill” advocates the intake ritual a pill, where the mere act will save us from oblivion. Celine Caly x Andrea Galano Torry x Merle Findhammer Merle Findhammer (NL) work could be described as autonomous and research-based and focuses mainly on poetic storytelling, exploration and identity. Andrea (ES,CL) is a graphic Designer and video artist with a focus on research and storytelling. Celine Caly‘s (DE/UA) practice as artist and designer is grounded in her with a fascination for eco-systems and experience in holistic farming.

1000 Beams - Joost Koster Composed of clips found on Youtube, 1000 Beams (2016) shows images of digital buildings being demolished. A collage made of digital debris depicting digital debris. Joost Koster Joost Koster works by combining video, performance, audio and drawing.

Se ne sentivano di tutti i colori (or: In praise of cords and cables) - Cladi Tola Web-found imagery of dismissed electrical wires, technical cables and power cords is edited in abstract forms and colors, flashing on screen in a continuous loop. At first they appear full of life, almost a living being, but at a closer look they are all cut into pieces, fallen into disuse, shattered, and therefore unable to perform their original, essential function of creating and bearing connections, both physical and metaphorical. The work is therefore a visual reflection on the notions of connection/communication, as well as on the paradoxical, double-faced relation between the (apparent) dismission of physical infrastructure/technology and the (perceived) immateriality of the digital realm. Cladi Tola Suburban melancholic, digital nihilist, full-time flâneur. Mostly makes speculative film-essays and incidental videos, writes short texts, draws sketches. Thinks and works in/by/with fragments and layers, endlessly edits. Studied architecture and visual arts in Turin, Paris and Venice, is a prospective master student at PZI (Rotterdam). Currently lives and works in Maastricht.

**Wendy Williams' Wondrous Wax Whopper - Levi van Gelder ** Combining poor image/found footage of the reveal of Wendy Williams’ Madame Tussauds wax figure with algorithmic frame interpolation to enhance an obsessive gaze (superstimulus) towards the uncanny nature of wax reproduction and talk-show spectacle. Levi van Gelder My practice is focused on experimental filmmaking, artistic research, creative (theory-fiction) writing, performance and art education. Driven by processes of reproduction in digital- and pop-culture, celebrity worship and meme aesthetics, I aim to unearth frictions between compounds of reality and fiction, representation and misrepresentation, and to tap into the dormant spaces of critical and whimsical play nestled inside others.

Digital compost - Emmy Hanny What if your desktop had no trashbin but a compost which would turn all your documents into digital art? A compost that is fertilizer for you imagination and creativity? This work is a suggestion for circularity of files and a speculation about digital recycling. The compost is the realization of one specific element from a concept for an alternative desktop. Namely an alpine ecosystem instead of an operating system; a lively environment of digital organic elements. This work exists as a website where the user can drag and drop files to see them create a new composted visual. Emmy Hanny I'm an interdisciplinary designer who aims to create sustainable change by livng in and with the environment. I grew up as a part of an alpine ecosystem which now faces the negative impacts of climate change and I feel the responsibility to be the channel for sustainable change. As a student of the Interactive/Media/Design department at KABK I explore nature inclusive design, circularity and the human position in the ecosphere.