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Verein zur Förderung der Interkreativität

Postfach 0028
1072 Wien

ZVR-Zahl: 379653313
UID.: ATU66039057

Please find the privacy policy here:
https://www.belvedere.at/en/privacy-policy

Festival Venue:
Belvedere 21, Arsenalstraße 1, 1030 Wien
https://www.belvedere.at/besuch/belvedere-21

Imprint:
Österreichische Galerie Belvedere
Wissenschaftliche Anstalt öffentlichen Rechts
Prinz Eugen-Strasse 27
1030 Wien
T: +43 1 795 57-0
E-Mail: info@belvedere.at
Rechtsform: wissenschaftliche Anstalt öffentlichen Rechts
Firmenbuchnummer: FN 192738 p
Firmenbuchgericht: Handelsgericht Wien
UID Nr: ATU 16286800 DVR Nr: 00447404

For direct inquiries to sound:frame, write to info@soundframe.at

In case you want to contact our awareness team, write to awareness@soundframe.at

Introduction

Civa stands for Contemporary Immersive Virtual Art and was founded by the agency sound:frame (www.soundframe.at). From 2024 onwards, the Civa media art festival will be jointly organized and developed by Belvedere 21 and sound:frame.

This Code of Conduct is a living document that is continuously evolving and adapting to socio-political changes. We strive for the highest levels of inclusivity and sensitivity. If anyone notices any inaccuracies or instances of discrimination, we encourage you to report them. We acknowledge that we are not immune to making mistakes, but we are committed to learning and growing as an organization.

If you have any questions or remarks concerning this Code of Conduct, please don’t hesitate to contact awareness@soundframe.at.

The Code of Conduct does not replace any existing legal regulations but tries to ensure that everyone involved in the Civa-Festival experiences a discrimination-free environment and has as equal access to the festival as possible. Our goal is to create a space where all participants feel safe, respected, and valued, regardless of their background or identity.

The principles laid down in this Code of Conduct apply to all persons that participate in the Civa-Festival, including 

  • participants 

  • speakers

  • performers

  • members of the team

  • official partners to the Civa-Festival 

  • our sponsors. 

The current Code of Conduct offers an opportunity for safe interactions, protection, and stability. It serves as a framework and an additional tool for individuals to speak out against discrimination. For the organization, it provides a clear foundation to individually assess each case and determine specific actions to take. This approach aims to create added stability and security.

Why do we need a Code of Conduct for the Civa festival?

We are committed to provide an environment of mutual respect that is welcoming for all participants. We wish the festival to be a place of solidarity, thoughtful dialog and awareness! 

The Civa-Team hopes this Code of Conduct can serve as a guideline for communication and collaboration. We articulate desired behaviors while identifying our red lines and the consequences of exceeding. We want to create the most positive and safe positive environment possible for all participants, our team and our partners.

The necessity of a Code of Conduct for the Civa-Festival stems from the recognition that we live in a society characterised by inequalities. This document is essential to decrease the level of improvisation when handling harmful or unprofessional situations and to create accountability scenarios for those whose behavior makes others uncomfortable. It helps set collective boundaries for the organization and acts as a contract with everyone in the space, ensuring that hosts can create an inviting environment and guests feel welcome and included.

The Code of Conduct encourages reflection on what it means to share space, fostering respectful interactions and providing a protocol for dealing with conflicts. While conflicts can be an important catalyst for discussion and growth, they must be managed within defined limits to prevent harm. By addressing misconceptions, sharing responsibility for inclusivity, and creating a framework to understand our own boundaries and the boundaries of other persons. We establish a common ground for common values. This ensures everyone is heard, feels comfortable, and can trust one another, promoting a respectful and inclusive community at the festival.

Please note that the principles laid down are seen as non negotiable. Therefore, we reserve the right to take the adequate actions needed to preserve those principles as listed below.


Guidelines for Social Conduct

We uphold a zero-tolerance policy for any form of harassment, violence or discriminatory behavior.

We aim to ensure a safe, inclusive and supportive environment for all who share our basic values of solidarity and respect. This can lead to the exclusion of individuals or groups who promote hate or discrimination in accordance with the above mentioned point.

We celebrate diverse skills, disciplinary and educational backgrounds. We value mutual learning and embrace the unexpected. Civa is a place for growth and development, where we support each other in learning from our experiences, including our mistakes. 

We cooperate with people in a respectful and honest way. We encourage constructive and supportive interactions. Every person within the scope of this Code of Conduct is expected to contribute to a positive atmosphere, where collaboration and cooperation are prioritized over exclusionary behaviors.

Conflicts may arise, and we view them as opportunities for growth and discussion, provided they are handled with respect and within appropriate boundaries. We have a protocol for addressing conflicts that emphasizes resolution and learning. 

Reporting & Intervening by the Civa team 

We are deeply committed to fostering an inclusive, diverse, and discrimination-sensitive environment within our organization. We try to ensure a safe and supportive atmosphere, and therefore strongly encourage you to report any concerns regarding breaches of our Code of Conduct.

If you feel unsafe or encounter problematic behavior, we encourage you to speak up if you feel comfortable doing so. If you don’t have the energy or time to engage in a discussion, you can always contact us, and we will assist you. It is not necessary to disclose your identity. However, please be aware that your email address may reveal something about your identity. We assure you that, if requested, we will treat your matter with complete confidentiality.

Should you be called out on your behavior, listen, pause, apologize, and thank the person for pointing it out. Take responsibility to educate yourself, especially if the feedback is new to you.

In cases of experienced or observed harassment, or offensive, discriminatory behavior please email us at awareness@soundframe.at.

We handle all reports confidentially and impartially, and we have trained individuals ready to assist. 



Consequences of a breach of the Code of Conduct 

Each notification listed above will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis by a team from the Civa-Festival, consisting of at least one Awareness Person and one person from the Leadership Team. The team will subsequently assess the situation and take appropriate corrective actions, and a careful review will be conducted to determine whether a breach of the Code of Conduct has occurred. 

If a violation is confirmed, sound:frame reserves the right to exclude participants from events. Additionally, sound:frame may terminate contracts with employees, partners, performers, artists or speakers.

Compliance 

For our full data policy statement, please visit: https://civa.pointer.click/de#privacy-policy

Contact and further information

→ awareness@soundframe.at

This Code of Conduct was created together with Sophie Rendl from Frauendomäne

Pressdownload

For further information or appointments, please contact the Belvedere press team:

T: +43 1 795 57-185
presse@belvedere.at

Civa 2021

Civa 2022

Civa 2023

Belvedere 21

Vienna Business Agency

Kulturen in Bewegung by Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation

D—Arts Projektbüro für Diversität

ATC – Austrian Truss Constructions

mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien

sound:frame

Eva Fischer, Djamila Grandits, Angie-Shahira Pohl, Mena Huber, Katharina Fennesz, Maria Rudakova, Marlene Kager, Maximilian Prag, Enrico Zago, Klimentina Milenova, studio pointer*, Anna-Lena Panter, Ayo Aloba, Marija Milovanovic, PICKS, Hanna Fasching

Belvedere 21

Theresa Dann-Freyenschlag, Sarah Kronschläger, Anna Ewa Dyrko, Daniel Wallner, Lisa Martha Janka, Katja Stecher, Julia Haimburger, Irene Jäger, Jake Schneider, Steven Lindberg, Katharina Sacken, Paul Mayer, Magdalena Schuster, Lisa Stadler, Sarah Matysek, Monica Strinu, Matthias Müller, Michael Krupica

coded manoeuvres

Festival: October 1–5, 2024 
Exhibition: coded manoeuvres_sticky webs, October 1, 2024 – February 2, 2025

Belvedere 21, Arsenalstraße 1, 1030 Vienna

The Civa media art festival explores the intersection of contemporary technologies, realities, and experiences in digital, physical, and hybrid spaces. The 2024 edition will investigate the intricate processes involved in the creation of intelligence and the flow and dissemination of knowledge. Civa will host discussions, film screenings, and live performances at the Belvedere 21 from October 1st through the 5th, 2024. A central element will be the exhibition coded manoeuvres_sticky webs, on view from October 1, 2024 to February 2, 2025.

Upon close examination, it becomes evident that the concept of intelligence as a quantifiable indicator of knowledge, ability, and understanding is inextricably entangled with structural violence. This prompts questions about the recognition, centralization, and instrumentalization of certain forms of knowledge and the delegitimization and marginalization of others. Understanding intelligence not as a purely human trait or technology but as something that also extends to knowing entities and organisms allows for the exploration of a realm in which power constructions and technologies can be decoded and disrupted. How can organisms breach militarized spheres and thereby glitch violent technologies? What survival strategies, tactics, and codes are needed to effectively resist the imposition of binary coding and appropriation? What kinds of symbiotic relationships can we envision and program?

The artistic positions chosen by Civa break down juxtapositions between digital and physical space, embodied knowledge and reason, online and offline, and challenge the hierarchical structure of forms of existence. These works raise questions about collective approaches to knowledge and organisms and their applicability to the discourse on (artificial) intelligence, giving rise to sensuous choreographies, unexpected patterns of movement, and new symbiotic arrangements in hybrid space.

From 2024, the Civa media art festival will be jointly organized and developed by the Belvedere 21 and sound:frame.

Curators:

Exhibition: Eva Fischer, Djamila Grandits
Discourse and networking: Eva Fischer, Djamila Grandits, Angie-Shahira Pohl, Paul Feigelfeld; mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology); VIDC – Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation; D––Arts
Tours: Klimentina Milenova
Screening: Djamila Grandits, Marija Milovanovic, Anna-Lena Panter
Live: Eva Fischer, Angie-Shahira Pohl 

Admission to the exhibition and all Civa festival events is free October 1–5, 2024. 

“In considering the thematic focus of this year’s Civa festival, I found it intriguing from a media theory perspective that the advancement of artificial intelligence and the understanding of its underlying processes have prompted many industries, including the arts, to engage more profoundly with the concept of intelligence. Western cultures have historically held an anthropocentric worldview in which attributes such as intelligence, self-determination, and freedom are ascribed exclusively to (certain) human beings. Evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis, for example, has challenged this perspective, arguing in her research on symbiosis that human intelligence is based on symbiotic (bodily) processes. coded manoeuvres symbolizes the flow and dissemination of knowledge and explores the concept of intelligence in terms of collective action that is inextricably linked to the body. coded manoeuvres stands for various rituals and forms of communication that emphasize the communal, the symbiotic, and thus the inseparable.” —Eva Fischer 

“Ultimately, we are less interested in understanding networks as something artificial than in recognizing the confusion and imagining spaces that enthusiastically embrace the interconnectedness of worlds. Elements connect, not in a sterile way, but with a delight in friction and stickiness, creating a spatial mixture that relates bodies, affects, and language(s) to temporalities and movements without ever considering them as fixed. An entanglement filled with the testing of choreographies and relationships—an exciting, form-diverse process that makes room for desire and the imagination of coded maneuvers through sticky nets. In its organization, it allows for collaborative movement within a violently structured world.” —Djamila Grandits

Filipa César and Louis Henderson
Sunstone
2018

Taking Fresnel lenses that were used primarily for lighthouses in the nineteenth century as their starting point, Filipa César and Louis Henderson address the violent entanglements of technological developments. In Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of Portugal, the filmmakers met lighthouse keeper Roque Pina. Their conversations on the origin of the first lighthouse as an intervention against piracy and the lack of unions are linked with the cinematic studies of navigational and optical devices.

By tracing the development of military (security) technologies in Sunstone, César and Henderson reveal the consequences of colonial rule while also making the resulting capitalist routes and architectures tangible. The latter are in turn superimposed with set pieces from postrevolutionary Op Art from Cuba. The cinematic dialogue is also translated into a formal one: whereas the computer-generated animations produce multiperspectival satellite images, the celluloid sequences break open the ideologies of “enlightenment” by playing with optics.

Filipa César is an artist and filmmaker whose work navigates the fluid boundaries between moving images and their reception, blending fiction with documentary and exploring the intricate economies, politics, and poetics inherent in cinematic practice. Much of her experimental film work centers on the lingering echoes of resistance in Portugal’s geopolitical history, challenging conventional narratives and creating spaces for subjective knowledge to emerge. César has been deeply engaged in researching the early roots of cinema in Guinea-Bissau, exploring its cultural imaginaries and potential. This research has evolved into the collective project Luta ca caba inda (The Struggle Is Not Over Yet).

Louis Henderson is a filmmaker known for his documentary-fiction films that tackle themes of postcolonialism, history, politics, and anthropology. His work acts as a cinematic archaeology, uncovering the traces of the past within contemporary culture and materiality. Henderson’s films have been showcased both nationally and internationally at venues such as International Film Festival Rotterdam, CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, Le Printemps de Septembre in Toulouse, Belo Horizonte Film Festival, Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, EMAF Osnabrück, the British Film Institute, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, Tate Modern in London, and Whitechapel Gallery in London.

Image copyright of the artist, courtesy of Video Data Bank, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Filipa César Louis Henderson

Filipa César & Louis Henderson

Sunstone

Filipa César and Louis Henderson
Sunstone
2018

Taking Fresnel lenses that were used primarily for lighthouses in the nineteenth century as their starting point, Filipa César and Louis Henderson address the violent entanglements of technological developments. In Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of Portugal, the filmmakers met lighthouse keeper Roque Pina. Their conversations on the origin of the first lighthouse as an intervention against piracy and the lack of unions are linked with the cinematic studies of navigational and optical devices.

By tracing the development of military (security) technologies in Sunstone, César and Henderson reveal the consequences of colonial rule while also making the resulting capitalist routes and architectures tangible. The latter are in turn superimposed with set pieces from postrevolutionary Op Art from Cuba. The cinematic dialogue is also translated into a formal one: whereas the computer-generated animations produce multiperspectival satellite images, the celluloid sequences break open the ideologies of “enlightenment” by playing with optics.

Filipa César is an artist and filmmaker whose work navigates the fluid boundaries between moving images and their reception, blending fiction with documentary and exploring the intricate economies, politics, and poetics inherent in cinematic practice. Much of her experimental film work centers on the lingering echoes of resistance in Portugal’s geopolitical history, challenging conventional narratives and creating spaces for subjective knowledge to emerge. César has been deeply engaged in researching the early roots of cinema in Guinea-Bissau, exploring its cultural imaginaries and potential. This research has evolved into the collective project Luta ca caba inda (The Struggle Is Not Over Yet).

Louis Henderson is a filmmaker known for his documentary-fiction films that tackle themes of postcolonialism, history, politics, and anthropology. His work acts as a cinematic archaeology, uncovering the traces of the past within contemporary culture and materiality. Henderson’s films have been showcased both nationally and internationally at venues such as International Film Festival Rotterdam, CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, Le Printemps de Septembre in Toulouse, Belo Horizonte Film Festival, Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, EMAF Osnabrück, the British Film Institute, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, Tate Modern in London, and Whitechapel Gallery in London.

Image copyright of the artist, courtesy of Video Data Bank, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Filipa César Louis Henderson

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CROSSLUCID
There is a resistance to memory inside the memory itself.
Act Two: {Sanctuary of Co-Individuations}
2024

Elisabeth Sweet’s poem Erodium forms the basis for There is a resistance to memory inside the memory itself. Act Two: {Sanctuary of Co-Individuations}, a jointly conceived film by CROSSLUCID. Using the new technology alias, the duo’s artistic material is processed with AI-generated visual elements and interwoven with the mantra-like soundscape by musician and violinist Sayaka Botanic. In the film, CROSSLUCID develops alternative pasts and futures that are beyond language and reason. As an established form of communication and mutual understanding, human language reinforces existing hierarchies and the separation of species. By contrast, CROSSLUCID pursues the approach of radical empathy that considers different forms of intelligence by exploring unknown semantic paths using nonlinguistic means.

Established in 2018, CROSSLUCID is an artist collective that engages in highly collaborative cross-disciplinary projects in coevolution with technology. Their work and research converge around the exploration of the self as a network, intimacy and the potential for pleasurable actualization through the digital sphere, and the reimagination of our alliances with technology seen as part of a sympoietic biosphere and universal postmaterial consciousness. Through explorations spanning filmmaking, poetic Artificial Intelligence, multilayered techniques of collage, assemblage, and experience-led interventions, they create scenarios and build experiential formats that instigate prototyping and rehearsing potential futures and progressing metamodern values.

Image: © CROSSLUCID

CROSSLUCID

CROSSLUCID

There is a resistance to memory inside the memory itself. A Symphony in Five Acts' Act II, Sanctuary of Co-Individuation.

CROSSLUCID
There is a resistance to memory inside the memory itself.
Act Two: {Sanctuary of Co-Individuations}
2024

Elisabeth Sweet’s poem Erodium forms the basis for There is a resistance to memory inside the memory itself. Act Two: {Sanctuary of Co-Individuations}, a jointly conceived film by CROSSLUCID. Using the new technology alias, the duo’s artistic material is processed with AI-generated visual elements and interwoven with the mantra-like soundscape by musician and violinist Sayaka Botanic. In the film, CROSSLUCID develops alternative pasts and futures that are beyond language and reason. As an established form of communication and mutual understanding, human language reinforces existing hierarchies and the separation of species. By contrast, CROSSLUCID pursues the approach of radical empathy that considers different forms of intelligence by exploring unknown semantic paths using nonlinguistic means.

Established in 2018, CROSSLUCID is an artist collective that engages in highly collaborative cross-disciplinary projects in coevolution with technology. Their work and research converge around the exploration of the self as a network, intimacy and the potential for pleasurable actualization through the digital sphere, and the reimagination of our alliances with technology seen as part of a sympoietic biosphere and universal postmaterial consciousness. Through explorations spanning filmmaking, poetic Artificial Intelligence, multilayered techniques of collage, assemblage, and experience-led interventions, they create scenarios and build experiential formats that instigate prototyping and rehearsing potential futures and progressing metamodern values.

Image: © CROSSLUCID

CROSSLUCID

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 Evan Ifekoya
The Vibration (Sun Light)
2022

Sound plays a central role in Evan Ifekoya’s artistic practice. The immersive sound sculpture The Vibration (Sun Light) enables visitors to enter a multisensory experience in which Ifekoya has woven their own sound together with those of artists Raf Alero, Rahima Gambo, and Maïa Nunes. The acoustic level directs the focus on the realities of the lives of people who were systematically excluded from sacred spaces. In the octagonal installation with two vibrating massage mats, visitors are immersed in soundscapes that cause their bodies to vibrate. By experimenting with sound, resonance, and silence, the work explores the essence of being and knowing beyond visual perception.

Ifekoya studies embodied knowledge and the transformative potential inherent in sensory interactions and immersive environments. The spaces created become nodes and places of refuge that permit renewal, healing, and new beginnings, encouraging both individual and communal well-being.

Evan Ifekoya is a London-based interdisciplinary artist working in community organizing, installation, performance, sound, text, and video, whose practice is an extension of their calling as a spiritual practitioner. They view art as a site where resources can be both redistributed and renegotiated while challenging the implicit rules and hierarchies of public and social space. Through archival and sonic investigations, they speculate on blackness in abundance. Strategies of space holding through architectural interventions, ritual, sonic installations, and workshops enable them to make a practice of living in order not to turn to despair. They established the collectively run and QTIBPOC (queer, trans*, intersex, black, and people of color)-led Black Obsidian Sound System (B.O.S.S.) in 2018.

Image: © Evan Ifekoya & Stefan Altenburger

Evan Ifekoya

Evan Ifekoya

The Vibration (Sun Light)

 Evan Ifekoya
The Vibration (Sun Light)
2022

Sound plays a central role in Evan Ifekoya’s artistic practice. The immersive sound sculpture The Vibration (Sun Light) enables visitors to enter a multisensory experience in which Ifekoya has woven their own sound together with those of artists Raf Alero, Rahima Gambo, and Maïa Nunes. The acoustic level directs the focus on the realities of the lives of people who were systematically excluded from sacred spaces. In the octagonal installation with two vibrating massage mats, visitors are immersed in soundscapes that cause their bodies to vibrate. By experimenting with sound, resonance, and silence, the work explores the essence of being and knowing beyond visual perception.

Ifekoya studies embodied knowledge and the transformative potential inherent in sensory interactions and immersive environments. The spaces created become nodes and places of refuge that permit renewal, healing, and new beginnings, encouraging both individual and communal well-being.

Evan Ifekoya is a London-based interdisciplinary artist working in community organizing, installation, performance, sound, text, and video, whose practice is an extension of their calling as a spiritual practitioner. They view art as a site where resources can be both redistributed and renegotiated while challenging the implicit rules and hierarchies of public and social space. Through archival and sonic investigations, they speculate on blackness in abundance. Strategies of space holding through architectural interventions, ritual, sonic installations, and workshops enable them to make a practice of living in order not to turn to despair. They established the collectively run and QTIBPOC (queer, trans*, intersex, black, and people of color)-led Black Obsidian Sound System (B.O.S.S.) in 2018.

Image: © Evan Ifekoya & Stefan Altenburger

Evan Ifekoya

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Martina Menegon
I’m sorry I made you feel that way
2023

Data increasingly provides us with knowledge about our own bodies and shapes the ways in which we care for, protect, and optimize them. I’m sorry I made you feel that way is a performative self-portrait by Martina Menegon drawing on biometric data. Each day, data collected by a smart ring worn on the artist’s finger is transferred via machine learning to a digital avatar that interacts with exhibition visitors. The current state of Menegon’s body has a direct impact on her virtual counterpart, with fatigue or stress degrading the avatar’s condition and behavior, and posing growing obstacles to communication. In this intimate work, the artist calls attention to a new hybrid form of embodiment and the virtual self-care that accompanies it.

Martina Menegon is an artist, curator, and educator who lives and works in Vienna, where she is currently senior artist and lecturer at the Transmedia Art department of the University of Applied Arts Vienna / die Angewandte. In her artistic practice, Menegon creates intimate and complex assemblages of physical and virtual elements that explore the contemporary self and its hybrid corporeality. Using (and misusing) game engines, algorithms, and the virtual, she experiments with various forms of performative and glitched self-portraitures, exploring new simulated fluid identities and creating uncanny, interactive and disorienting experiences that become perceivable despite their virtual nature.

Image: © Martina Menegon

Martina Menegon

Martina Menegon

I'm sorry I made you feel that way

Martina Menegon
I’m sorry I made you feel that way
2023

Data increasingly provides us with knowledge about our own bodies and shapes the ways in which we care for, protect, and optimize them. I’m sorry I made you feel that way is a performative self-portrait by Martina Menegon drawing on biometric data. Each day, data collected by a smart ring worn on the artist’s finger is transferred via machine learning to a digital avatar that interacts with exhibition visitors. The current state of Menegon’s body has a direct impact on her virtual counterpart, with fatigue or stress degrading the avatar’s condition and behavior, and posing growing obstacles to communication. In this intimate work, the artist calls attention to a new hybrid form of embodiment and the virtual self-care that accompanies it.

Martina Menegon is an artist, curator, and educator who lives and works in Vienna, where she is currently senior artist and lecturer at the Transmedia Art department of the University of Applied Arts Vienna / die Angewandte. In her artistic practice, Menegon creates intimate and complex assemblages of physical and virtual elements that explore the contemporary self and its hybrid corporeality. Using (and misusing) game engines, algorithms, and the virtual, she experiments with various forms of performative and glitched self-portraitures, exploring new simulated fluid identities and creating uncanny, interactive and disorienting experiences that become perceivable despite their virtual nature.

Image: © Martina Menegon

Martina Menegon

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Philipp Muerling
coded manoeuvres_sticky webs
2024

Lines converge and veer apart. Their intersections create denser areas of the canvas, forming spatial structures. A tangle of pencil, chalk, and gouache fills the background from which nude figures emerge. Their bodies struggle to balance, following a kind of choreography that gives shape to an inner dialogue. As a wheelchair user obstructed by both visible and invisible barriers, Philipp Muerling proclaims himself the key to confronting disadvantages in society, and his art calls attention to discrimination he has personally experienced. For example, his performance Besuch auf der Akademie (Visit at the Academy) illustrates that the accessible side door to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna is not a real alternative to the main entrance. Muerling continually blurs the borders between a range of media: videos turn into drawings, drawings into activism, activism into performances, and performances into new sketches.

Philipp Muerling is an Austrian performer and draftsman who is currently studying at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Since his youth, he has been impaired by a neurodegenerative disease, and his works unsparingly and uncompromisingly assimilate his experiences with being confined to a wheelchair and with his physical “situation,” as he himself describes it. They draw attention to the challenges and humiliations that people with disabilities encounter daily. In political actions, he protests, for example, the fact that despite extensive renovations at his place of study he can still access it only via the back door. Muerling’s large-format drawings in pencil, oil pastel, and charcoal show his naked body, the associated challenges, and his constant struggle with gravity. The central principles of his art, according to Muerling, are he himself and society’s reactions to him.

Image: © Philipp Muerling

Philipp Muerling

Philipp Muerling

coded manoeuvres

Philipp Muerling
coded manoeuvres_sticky webs
2024

Lines converge and veer apart. Their intersections create denser areas of the canvas, forming spatial structures. A tangle of pencil, chalk, and gouache fills the background from which nude figures emerge. Their bodies struggle to balance, following a kind of choreography that gives shape to an inner dialogue. As a wheelchair user obstructed by both visible and invisible barriers, Philipp Muerling proclaims himself the key to confronting disadvantages in society, and his art calls attention to discrimination he has personally experienced. For example, his performance Besuch auf der Akademie (Visit at the Academy) illustrates that the accessible side door to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna is not a real alternative to the main entrance. Muerling continually blurs the borders between a range of media: videos turn into drawings, drawings into activism, activism into performances, and performances into new sketches.

Philipp Muerling is an Austrian performer and draftsman who is currently studying at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Since his youth, he has been impaired by a neurodegenerative disease, and his works unsparingly and uncompromisingly assimilate his experiences with being confined to a wheelchair and with his physical “situation,” as he himself describes it. They draw attention to the challenges and humiliations that people with disabilities encounter daily. In political actions, he protests, for example, the fact that despite extensive renovations at his place of study he can still access it only via the back door. Muerling’s large-format drawings in pencil, oil pastel, and charcoal show his naked body, the associated challenges, and his constant struggle with gravity. The central principles of his art, according to Muerling, are he himself and society’s reactions to him.

Image: © Philipp Muerling

Philipp Muerling

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Brooklyn J. Pakathi
_reality at the end of a dream
2024

Brooklyn J. Pakathi’s research on digital psychology produces references to neurological behavior patterns triggered by using current communication technologies. In the recently conceived video installation _reality at the end of a dream, Pakathi takes up these insights and studies private and public messages on social media and diverse online forums with an eye to violent terminology. On three video screens, single words meet as action, description, and output and in their interplay create poetic sculptures. The forms of the words are combined to make landscape images and form a visual scenography that depicts a number of models of relationships and overcomes the deep-rooted ideal of pairs. By emphasizing individual formulations in isolation, Pakathi reveals hidden emotions that subliminally transport a coded language in everyday communication and interaction.

Brooklyn J. Pakathi is a transmedia artist with an ongoing studio practice in Vienna. Much of their most recent work focuses on the language and materiality of emotion. Sentimental longing, melancholy, and various other configurations of intimacy affirm their practice. The Vienna-based artist/curator constructs objects, images, and virtual spaces to connect and abstract the underlying architecture of these profound and complex psychological forces.

Image: © Brooklyn J. Pakathi

Brooklyn J. Pakathi

Brooklyn J. Pakathi

_reality at the end of a dream

Brooklyn J. Pakathi
_reality at the end of a dream
2024

Brooklyn J. Pakathi’s research on digital psychology produces references to neurological behavior patterns triggered by using current communication technologies. In the recently conceived video installation _reality at the end of a dream, Pakathi takes up these insights and studies private and public messages on social media and diverse online forums with an eye to violent terminology. On three video screens, single words meet as action, description, and output and in their interplay create poetic sculptures. The forms of the words are combined to make landscape images and form a visual scenography that depicts a number of models of relationships and overcomes the deep-rooted ideal of pairs. By emphasizing individual formulations in isolation, Pakathi reveals hidden emotions that subliminally transport a coded language in everyday communication and interaction.

Brooklyn J. Pakathi is a transmedia artist with an ongoing studio practice in Vienna. Much of their most recent work focuses on the language and materiality of emotion. Sentimental longing, melancholy, and various other configurations of intimacy affirm their practice. The Vienna-based artist/curator constructs objects, images, and virtual spaces to connect and abstract the underlying architecture of these profound and complex psychological forces.

Image: © Brooklyn J. Pakathi

Brooklyn J. Pakathi

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Dagmar Schürrer
Where does the rest of the world begin? (SYNCHRONY)
2024

In the 1990s, American microbiologist Lynn Margulis promoted the concept of symbiosis, showing how the coexistence between organisms serves their mutual benefit. Dagmar Schürrer draws on these insights in Where does the rest of the world begin?, her most recent group of works, and pairs them with the theory of neural synchrony, under which individuals are linked to each other by similar life circumstances, shared rituals, and digital media, encouraging reciprocal influences. The fact that our thoughts, behavior, and consciousness are somewhat interconnected facilitates new forms of selfhood and social coexistence. As an artist, Schürrer translates these theoretical concepts into visually poetic experiences and picturesque realms that blur the boundaries between digital and analog, humanity and technology, nature and culture. Her digital animation depicts hybrid avatars in a synchronized dance, generating a hypnotic flow of repetitions and rituals. Here, dance becomes a coded form of knowledge transmission that enables collective bodies to connect.

Dagmar Schürrer is a digital artist working in the field of expanded animation and extended reality (XR) technologies. Her work has been presented around the globe at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the Louvre in Paris, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, the Eunam Museum of Art in Gwangju, Ars Electronica in Linz, ISEA Brisbane, and Tate Modern in London. Since 2018 she has been a research assistant and workshop leader for artistic XR development at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences and since 2021 she has been a board member of the media art association (mkv—medienkunstverein) in Berlin.

Image: © Dagmar Schürrer

Dagmar Schürrer

Dagmar Schürrer

Where does the rest of the world begin (SYNCHRONY)

Dagmar Schürrer
Where does the rest of the world begin? (SYNCHRONY)
2024

In the 1990s, American microbiologist Lynn Margulis promoted the concept of symbiosis, showing how the coexistence between organisms serves their mutual benefit. Dagmar Schürrer draws on these insights in Where does the rest of the world begin?, her most recent group of works, and pairs them with the theory of neural synchrony, under which individuals are linked to each other by similar life circumstances, shared rituals, and digital media, encouraging reciprocal influences. The fact that our thoughts, behavior, and consciousness are somewhat interconnected facilitates new forms of selfhood and social coexistence. As an artist, Schürrer translates these theoretical concepts into visually poetic experiences and picturesque realms that blur the boundaries between digital and analog, humanity and technology, nature and culture. Her digital animation depicts hybrid avatars in a synchronized dance, generating a hypnotic flow of repetitions and rituals. Here, dance becomes a coded form of knowledge transmission that enables collective bodies to connect.

Dagmar Schürrer is a digital artist working in the field of expanded animation and extended reality (XR) technologies. Her work has been presented around the globe at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the Louvre in Paris, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, the Eunam Museum of Art in Gwangju, Ars Electronica in Linz, ISEA Brisbane, and Tate Modern in London. Since 2018 she has been a research assistant and workshop leader for artistic XR development at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences and since 2021 she has been a board member of the media art association (mkv—medienkunstverein) in Berlin.

Image: © Dagmar Schürrer

Dagmar Schürrer

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Ziyang Wu + Mark H. Ramos
Future_Forecast
2022

For their project Future_Forecast, artists Ziyang Wu and Mark H. Ramos have developed a computer-generated film and a collective world-building game. The game’s architecture is based on the stack theory of American media philosopher Benjamin Bratton, who introduced the image of the “digital stack” to illustrate the worldwide process of digitization: a global, constantly changing megastructure that permeates all levels of our reality.

The game universe presented in the exhibition simulates such a stack. Visitors enter as NFT characters and are able to change the virtual landscape by carrying out various missions. The visuals are modeled on real places and people in the Philippines, which has the most internet activity in the world and is the largest consumer of social media per person—despite having one of the slowest internet speeds. Future_Forecast explores the consequences of building network infrastructures in neocolonial contexts and presents new ideas for sustainable development.

Ziyang Wu is an artist based in Hangzhou, China, who currently teaches at the School of Intermedia Art at the China Academy of Art and is a former member of NEW INC at the New Museum in New York. He has exhibited internationally at institutions such as the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Rhizome at the New Museum in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Rochester Art Center, SXSW in Austin, Art Dubai, Haus der Elektronischen Künste in Basel, Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, Milan Design Week, M+ in Hong Kong, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, Long March Space in Beijing, Today Art Museum in Beijing, Song Art Museum in Beijing, How Art Museum in Shanghai, and K11 Musea in Hong Kong. His recent fellowships and residencies include the shortlist of the Future Generation Art Prize, the Randall Chair at Alfred University, the Kai Wu Interdisciplinary Studio residency at Guangdong Times Museum, the AACYF Top 30 under 30, Residency Unlimited, MacDowell Fellowship, and the Robert Rauschenberg Art Foundation’s ROCI Road to Peace.

Mark H. Ramos is a Brooklyn-based new media artist. He has exhibited his work and lectured widely both online and AFK at Rhizome’s First Look: New Art Online with the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Long March Space in Beijing, M+ in Hong Kong, Haus der Elektronischen Künste in Basel, Arebyte Gallery in London, and at the Peter Weibel Institute for Digital Culture in Vienna. Ramos teaches art after the internet in the MFA Fine Arts Department at the School of Visual Arts, Form and Code at Pratt Institute in New York, as well as web programming and computer principles in the Computer Science Department at New York University.

Image: © Mark H. Ramos & Ziyang Wu

Ziyang Wu Mark H. Ramos

Ziyang Wu & Mark H. Ramos

Future_Forecast

Ziyang Wu + Mark H. Ramos
Future_Forecast
2022

For their project Future_Forecast, artists Ziyang Wu and Mark H. Ramos have developed a computer-generated film and a collective world-building game. The game’s architecture is based on the stack theory of American media philosopher Benjamin Bratton, who introduced the image of the “digital stack” to illustrate the worldwide process of digitization: a global, constantly changing megastructure that permeates all levels of our reality.

The game universe presented in the exhibition simulates such a stack. Visitors enter as NFT characters and are able to change the virtual landscape by carrying out various missions. The visuals are modeled on real places and people in the Philippines, which has the most internet activity in the world and is the largest consumer of social media per person—despite having one of the slowest internet speeds. Future_Forecast explores the consequences of building network infrastructures in neocolonial contexts and presents new ideas for sustainable development.

Ziyang Wu is an artist based in Hangzhou, China, who currently teaches at the School of Intermedia Art at the China Academy of Art and is a former member of NEW INC at the New Museum in New York. He has exhibited internationally at institutions such as the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Rhizome at the New Museum in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Rochester Art Center, SXSW in Austin, Art Dubai, Haus der Elektronischen Künste in Basel, Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, Milan Design Week, M+ in Hong Kong, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, Long March Space in Beijing, Today Art Museum in Beijing, Song Art Museum in Beijing, How Art Museum in Shanghai, and K11 Musea in Hong Kong. His recent fellowships and residencies include the shortlist of the Future Generation Art Prize, the Randall Chair at Alfred University, the Kai Wu Interdisciplinary Studio residency at Guangdong Times Museum, the AACYF Top 30 under 30, Residency Unlimited, MacDowell Fellowship, and the Robert Rauschenberg Art Foundation’s ROCI Road to Peace.

Mark H. Ramos is a Brooklyn-based new media artist. He has exhibited his work and lectured widely both online and AFK at Rhizome’s First Look: New Art Online with the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Long March Space in Beijing, M+ in Hong Kong, Haus der Elektronischen Künste in Basel, Arebyte Gallery in London, and at the Peter Weibel Institute for Digital Culture in Vienna. Ramos teaches art after the internet in the MFA Fine Arts Department at the School of Visual Arts, Form and Code at Pratt Institute in New York, as well as web programming and computer principles in the Computer Science Department at New York University.

Image: © Mark H. Ramos & Ziyang Wu

Ziyang Wu Mark H. Ramos

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Inspired by thinkers, artists, activists, companions, and kin, the exhibition coded manoeuvres_sticky webs weaves a sticky web of connections and forms of knowledge. The library gives space to verbalized ideas and experiences as it speculatively interweaves scholarship, poetry, and fiction: an invitation to dive in and get stuck somewhere or to move through wormholes and portals, challenging linear conventions.

Barad, Karen. Verschränkungen. Berlin: Merve Verlag, 2015.

Bratton, Benjamin H. The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016.

Bridle, James. Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines; The Search for a Planetary Intelligence. London: Allen Lane, 2022.

Buolamwini, Joy. Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines. New York: Random House, 2023.

Butler, Octavia E. Wild Seed. London: Headline, 2020. Orig. pub. 1980.

———. Dawn: A Lilith’s Brood Novel. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2021.

Campt, Tina M. Listening to Images. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017.

D’Ignazio, Catherine, and Lauren F. Klein. Data Feminism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2020.

Haraway, Donna. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016.

Harney, Stefano, and Fred Moten. The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study. Wivenhoe, UK: Minor Compositions, 2013.

Klipphahn-Karge, Michael, Ann-Kathrin Koster, and Sara Morais dos Santos Bruss, eds., Queer Reflections on AI: Uncertain Intelligences. London: Taylor & Francis, 2023.

Loh, Janina. Roboterethik: Eine Einführung. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2019.

Margulis, Lynn. Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution. New York: Basic Books, 1998.

Russell, Legacy. Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto. London: Verso, 2020.

———. Black Meme: A History of the Images That Make Us. London: Verso, 2024.

Salami, Minna. Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone. New York: Amistad, 2020.

Steger, Rebecca, Marie Ludwig, Julia Brychcy, Elisabeth Pütz, and Kyra Sell, eds., Subalternativen: Postkoloniale Kritik und dekolonialer Widerstand in Lateinamerika. Münster: assemblage, 2017.

Library

Inspired by thinkers, artists, activists, companions, and kin, the exhibition coded manoeuvres_sticky webs weaves a sticky web of connections and forms of knowledge. The library gives space to verbalized ideas and experiences as it speculatively interweaves scholarship, poetry, and fiction: an invitation to dive in and get stuck somewhere or to move through wormholes and portals, challenging linear conventions.

Barad, Karen. Verschränkungen. Berlin: Merve Verlag, 2015.

Bratton, Benjamin H. The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016.

Bridle, James. Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines; The Search for a Planetary Intelligence. London: Allen Lane, 2022.

Buolamwini, Joy. Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines. New York: Random House, 2023.

Butler, Octavia E. Wild Seed. London: Headline, 2020. Orig. pub. 1980.

———. Dawn: A Lilith’s Brood Novel. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2021.

Campt, Tina M. Listening to Images. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017.

D’Ignazio, Catherine, and Lauren F. Klein. Data Feminism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2020.

Haraway, Donna. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016.

Harney, Stefano, and Fred Moten. The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study. Wivenhoe, UK: Minor Compositions, 2013.

Klipphahn-Karge, Michael, Ann-Kathrin Koster, and Sara Morais dos Santos Bruss, eds., Queer Reflections on AI: Uncertain Intelligences. London: Taylor & Francis, 2023.

Loh, Janina. Roboterethik: Eine Einführung. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2019.

Margulis, Lynn. Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution. New York: Basic Books, 1998.

Russell, Legacy. Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto. London: Verso, 2020.

———. Black Meme: A History of the Images That Make Us. London: Verso, 2024.

Salami, Minna. Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone. New York: Amistad, 2020.

Steger, Rebecca, Marie Ludwig, Julia Brychcy, Elisabeth Pütz, and Kyra Sell, eds., Subalternativen: Postkoloniale Kritik und dekolonialer Widerstand in Lateinamerika. Münster: assemblage, 2017.

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The cinema is a space of expansion and transmission, a space that allows for affects and (dis-)identifications. Here, sight lines are established and representations expressed. Cinema prompts reflections about technological developments and makes speculative realities feel possible. It creates space for what was and what will be. The works on display complement and deepen the discourses and positions in the space, considering the roles that video, film, and cinema play as bearers of knowledge.

John Akomfrah, The Last Angel Of History, 1995
Single-channel video, Color, Audio, 45:7 Min.

LIA, V3/G.S.I.L.XXIX, 2004
Video, Color, Audio, 9:40 Min.  

Tina Frank, CHRONOMOPS, 2005
Video, Color, Sound by General Magic, 2 Min.

Cinema

The cinema is a space of expansion and transmission, a space that allows for affects and (dis-)identifications. Here, sight lines are established and representations expressed. Cinema prompts reflections about technological developments and makes speculative realities feel possible. It creates space for what was and what will be. The works on display complement and deepen the discourses and positions in the space, considering the roles that video, film, and cinema play as bearers of knowledge.

John Akomfrah, The Last Angel Of History, 1995
Single-channel video, Color, Audio, 45:7 Min.

LIA, V3/G.S.I.L.XXIX, 2004
Video, Color, Audio, 9:40 Min.  

Tina Frank, CHRONOMOPS, 2005
Video, Color, Sound by General Magic, 2 Min.

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speakersartists

programme

formats

Anastasia Stravinsky

Asma Aiad

Ayo Aloba

Lynhan Balatbat-Helbock

Bassam Issa Al Sabah

Brigitte Felderer

Brooklyn J. Pakathi

Christiane Erharter

Cibelle Cavalli Bastos

Claudia Larcher

CROSSLUCID

Dagmar Schürrer

Elena Rumyantseva

Evan Ifekoya

Eyup Kuş

Felix Lenz

Filipa César

Imani Rameses

Jennifer Mehigan

John Akomfrah

Katharina Seidler

Katrina Daschner

Klimentina Milenova

Laura Coombs

Laura Welzenbach

Levan Akin

LIA

Louis Henderson

Lucia Kagramanyan

Maïa Nunes

Manu Luksch

Marissa Lôbo

Mark H. Ramos

Marko Kölbl

Martina Menegon

menty bb

Mia Meus

Negin Rezaie

Nelly Yaa Pinkrah

Paul Feigelfeld

Philipp Muerling

Philisha Kay

Pinar Yoldas

Rojin Sharafi

Sabine Himmelsbach

schnuffi

Sean Buckelew

Sweatmother

Tayo Alemi (Authentically Plastic)

TE-R

Therese Kaiser

Tina Frank

Tobias Raschbacher

Vanessa A. Opoku

Veronika Liebl

Viktor Schimpf

Vitória Cribb

Wu Tsang

Ziyang Wu

October 1, 7pm October 1, 7pm opening
Civa Opening
Civa Opening
October 1, 8pm October 1, 8pm dj line
Civa Opening Party
Ayo Aloba, menty bb & schnuffi
October 2, 12pm–1pm October 2, 12pm–1pm exhibition tour
Curator's tour
Eva Fischer and Djamila Grandits
October 2, 3pm–4pm (EN) October 2, 3pm–4pm (EN) exhibition tour, participatory performance lecture
Visions Beyond the Lens
Imani Rameses
October 2, 4pm–5:30pm October 2, 4pm–5:30pm dialogue
Nelly Yaa Pinkrah & Paul Feigelfeld
Nelly Yaa Pinkrah, Paul Feigelfeld
October 2, 5:30pm–6:30pm October 2, 5:30pm–6:30pm Live Performance
Splitting Stones
Maïa Nunes
October 2, 7:30pm–8:45pm October 2, 7:30pm–8:45pm Screening and talk
Hallucinations
Claudia Larcher, Eva Fischer
October 2, 9pm–9:30pm October 2, 9pm–9:30pm Live A/V Performance
Beyond the Facade
KARGA by Eyup Kuş
October 3, 12pm–1pm (EN) and 7pm–8pm (EN) October 3, 12pm–1pm (EN) and 7pm–8pm (EN) exhibition tour
In Distortion We Meet – Getting M.A.D.

Klimentina Milenova
October 3, 3pm–4pm (EN) October 3, 3pm–4pm (EN) exhibition tour, participatory performance lecture
Visions Beyond the Lens
Imani Rameses
October 3, 4pm–5:30pm October 3, 4pm–5:30pm Talk
coded manoeuvres_sticky webs
Artists and Curators Talk
October 3, 8pm–9:45pm October 3, 8pm–9:45pm screening
and then we danced
Levan Akin
October 3, 9:45pm–10:15pm October 3, 9:45pm–10:15pm Dialogue
Exploring queerness in staged folk dance through film
Marko Kölbl, Djamila Grandits
October 3, 9:30pm–11pm October 3, 9:30pm–11pm DJ
Lucia Kagramanyan
Lucia Kagramanyan
October 4, non public programme October 4, non public programme social session
Curating and Communicating in Demanding Times
Social Session with Angie-Shahira Pohl
October 4, non-public programme October 4, non-public programme networking and workshops
Curating and Communicating in Demanding Times
In Kooperation mit D—Arts / Projektbüro für Diversität
October 4, 12pm–1pm (EN) and 3pm–4pm (EN) October 4, 12pm–1pm (EN) and 3pm–4pm (EN) exhibition tour
Re(con)figurations: A Diffractive Exploration of Coded Manoeuvres
Felix Lenz
October 4, 7pm–9pm October 4, 7pm–9pm performative screening programme
skins on my bodies
curated by Djamila Grandits und Anna-Lena Panter
October 4, 9pm–10pm October 4, 9pm–10pm Live A/V Performance
Unbroken Jaws
Rojin Sharafi, TE-R
October 5, 12pm–1pm (DE) and 3pm–4pm (EN) October 5, 12pm–1pm (DE) and 3pm–4pm (EN) exhibition tour
Art Entertainment — Civa Festival Exhibition Tour
Laura Welzenbach
October 5, 3pm–3:45pm October 5, 3pm–3:45pm online presentation
Design approaches and CYBER FEMINISM INDEX
Laura Coombs, Maria Rudakova
October 5, 3:45pm–5pm October 5, 3:45pm–5pm talk
From Social Design to Soft Clubs
Brigitte Felderer, Marissa Lôbo, Negin Rezaie, Katharina Seidler
October 5, 6pm–7:15pm October 5, 6pm–7:15pm screening
Wildness
Wu Tsang
October 5, 7:45pm–9pm October 5, 7:45pm–9pm talk
Urban Encounters: The Potential of Non-Commercial Creative Space
Tayo Alemi aka Authentically Plastic, Therese Kaiser, Mia Meus, Ayo Aloba
October 5, 9:30pm–10pm October 5, 9:30pm–10pm Live A/V Performance
Authentically Plastic & Tobias Raschbacher pres. POLYCOLLISION
Authentically Plastic & Tobias Raschbacher
December 5, 5pm–6:30pm December 5, 5pm–6:30pm Discourse
Sprechstunde
by Belvedere 21 art mediation team and Klimentina Milenova
November 21, 6:30pm November 21, 6:30pm screening
More than Human
curated by Marija Milovanovic
Civa Opening

Festival opening and DJ lineup at the Belvedere 21

On October 1 at 7 pm, Stella Rollig, General Director of the Belvedere, festival director Eva Fischer and festival curator Djamila Grandits will host the official opening of the fourth edition of the Civa festival. The launch will be followed by a DJ set, providing the perfect opportunity for everyone to party and dance. The exhibition coded manoeuvres_stickywebs will open its doors to the public prior to the official evening opening, starting at 11 am.

October 1, 7pm October 1, 7pm opening
Civa Opening
Civa Opening
October 1, 8pm October 1, 8pm dj line
Civa Opening Party
Ayo Aloba, menty bb & schnuffi
Exhibition

coded manoeuvres_sticky webs

Understanding intelligence not as a purely human trait or technology but as also extending to knowing entities and organisms allows for the exploration of a realm where power constructions and technologies can be decoded and disrupted. How can organisms breach militarized spheres and thereby glitch violent technologies? What survival strategies, tactics, and codes are needed to effectively resist the imposition of binary coding and appropriation? What types of symbiotic relationships can we envision and program?

The artistic positions in the exhibition break down juxtapositions between digital and physical spaces, embodied knowledge and reason, online and offline, and challenge the hierarchical structure of forms of existence. The selected works raise questions about collective approaches to knowledge and organisms and their applicability to the discourse on (artificial) intelligence, giving rise to sensuous choreographies, unexpected patterns of movement, and new symbiotic arrangements in hybrid space.

Exhibition curators: Eva Fischer, Djamila Grandits
Curatorial assistant: Theresa Dann-Freyenschlag

With the support of A.T.C. – Austrian Truss Constructions

October 2, 12pm–1pm October 2, 12pm–1pm exhibition tour
Curator's tour
Eva Fischer and Djamila Grandits
October 2, 3pm–4pm (EN) October 2, 3pm–4pm (EN) exhibition tour, participatory performance lecture
Visions Beyond the Lens
Imani Rameses
October 3, 12pm–1pm (EN) and 7pm–8pm (EN) October 3, 12pm–1pm (EN) and 7pm–8pm (EN) exhibition tour
In Distortion We Meet – Getting M.A.D.

Klimentina Milenova
October 3, 3pm–4pm (EN) October 3, 3pm–4pm (EN) exhibition tour, participatory performance lecture
Visions Beyond the Lens
Imani Rameses
October 4, 12pm–1pm (EN) and 3pm–4pm (EN) October 4, 12pm–1pm (EN) and 3pm–4pm (EN) exhibition tour
Re(con)figurations: A Diffractive Exploration of Coded Manoeuvres
Felix Lenz
October 5, 12pm–1pm (DE) and 3pm–4pm (EN) October 5, 12pm–1pm (DE) and 3pm–4pm (EN) exhibition tour
Art Entertainment — Civa Festival Exhibition Tour
Laura Welzenbach
December 5, 5pm–6:30pm December 5, 5pm–6:30pm Discourse
Sprechstunde
by Belvedere 21 art mediation team and Klimentina Milenova
Discourse

Civa’s discursive program runs throughout the festival week. Key players will facilitate discussions and reflections on the festival’s "coded manoeuvres" theme. Discussions, dialogues, and workshops will engage participants in an in-depth exploration of the anthropocentric concept of intelligence as a quantifiable indicator of knowledge, ability, and understanding.

Presented by Vienna Business Agency

October 2, 4pm–5:30pm October 2, 4pm–5:30pm dialogue
Nelly Yaa Pinkrah & Paul Feigelfeld
Nelly Yaa Pinkrah, Paul Feigelfeld
October 3, 9:45pm–10:15pm October 3, 9:45pm–10:15pm Dialogue
Exploring queerness in staged folk dance through film
Marko Kölbl, Djamila Grandits
October 3, 4pm–5:30pm October 3, 4pm–5:30pm Talk
coded manoeuvres_sticky webs
Artists and Curators Talk
October 4, non-public programme October 4, non-public programme networking and workshops
Curating and Communicating in Demanding Times
In Kooperation mit D—Arts / Projektbüro für Diversität
October 4, non public programme October 4, non public programme social session
Curating and Communicating in Demanding Times
Social Session with Angie-Shahira Pohl
October 5, 3pm–3:45pm October 5, 3pm–3:45pm online presentation
Design approaches and CYBER FEMINISM INDEX
Laura Coombs, Maria Rudakova
October 5, 3:45pm–5pm October 5, 3:45pm–5pm talk
From Social Design to Soft Clubs
Brigitte Felderer, Marissa Lôbo, Negin Rezaie, Katharina Seidler
October 5, 7:45pm–9pm October 5, 7:45pm–9pm talk
Urban Encounters: The Potential of Non-Commercial Creative Space
Tayo Alemi aka Authentically Plastic, Therese Kaiser, Mia Meus, Ayo Aloba
Screenings

From Wednesday to Saturday, in addition to discussions and lectures, there will be film screenings accompanied by dialogues and live performances.

On Wednesday, 2 October, media artist and filmmaker Claudia Larcher will present a selection of her most recent works in the Hallucinations programme, in which she critically examines artificial intelligence and its impact on our perception. In the subsequent dialogue, Claudia Larcher and Eva Fischer will discuss (artificial) intelligence, critical post-humanism and how AI reflects our society.

On Thursday, October 3, the festival will screen the film and then we danced (2019), directed by Georgian filmmaker Levan Akin. As in other sections of the festival program and the exhibition, dance is presented as a form of coded and embodied language. and then we danced,  captures the dynamics of dance while systematically deconstructing preconceived notions of masculinity. In an emancipatory manner, it oscillates between queerness and tradition, normative social constructs and coded subversion.

On Friday, October 4, the short film program skins on my bodies, curated by Djamila Grandits and Anna-Lena Panter, prompts one to reconsider the multifaceted Self as a glitched form of empowerment and non-compliance.

Curator Marija Milovanovic’s film program More than Human  will serve as the festival’s epilogue on November 21. The short film program aims to enhance our understanding of the connections between humans, nature, and technology, as well as critically examine established concepts and promote a broader acceptance of various forms of intelligence.

October 2, 7:30pm–8:45pm October 2, 7:30pm–8:45pm Screening and talk
Hallucinations
Claudia Larcher, Eva Fischer
October 3, 8pm–9:45pm October 3, 8pm–9:45pm screening
and then we danced
Levan Akin
October 4, 7pm–9pm October 4, 7pm–9pm performative screening programme
skins on my bodies
curated by Djamila Grandits und Anna-Lena Panter
October 5, 6pm–7:15pm October 5, 6pm–7:15pm screening
Wildness
Wu Tsang
November 21, 6:30pm November 21, 6:30pm screening
More than Human
curated by Marija Milovanovic
Live

Every evening after the discussion and film programme, Civa will host DJ sets and live audiovisual performances in the Blickle Kino at the Belvedere 21.

After the festival kicks off with DJs from the Civa team, the live programme on the second day starts with Maïa Nunes' live performance Splitting Stone. Here the absence of language expands rather than restricts understanding, opening realms of non-verbal communication and inviting full embodied listening. This will be followed by the premiere of the new audiovisual live performance Beyond the Facade (2024) by Austrian experimental filmmaker KARGA by Eyup Kuş. KARGA creates unconventional narratives using dynamic collages of film footage, visual effects, light, and sound.

To close the festival’s third day, we will hear a set by Lucia Kagramanyan, a Vienna-based DJ known for her NTS Radio program Panorama Yerevan, who will showcase the different facets and the versatility of Armenian music in a mix of old and new recordings across various genres.

The festival Friday includes a live audiovisual set Unbroken Jaws by musician Rojin Sharafi and the visualist collective TE –R. Rojin Sharafi is a sound artist, sound engineer, and composer of acoustic, electroacoustic, and electronic music. She explores the potential of digital music performance, crossing genre boundaries and drawing from various musical fields, including noise, folk, ambient, metal, and contemporary music. TE –R is a variable collective for artistic work, founded in Vienna in 2014 by Louise Linsenbolz and Thomas Wagensommerer. TE –R navigates in and through medial spaces, shifting between image, game, and code.

The audiovisual live set POLYCOLLISION by Authentically Plastic and Tobias Raschbacher will conclude this year’s Civa festival. This performance combines politically charged soundscapes with northern Ugandan rhythms and Afrofuturism. Tayo Alemi and Tobias Raschbacher collaborated on the set as part of the 2024 Artist-in-Residence Program at VIDC – the Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation.

October 1, 8pm October 1, 8pm dj line
Civa Opening Party
Ayo Aloba, menty bb & schnuffi
October 2, 9pm–9:30pm October 2, 9pm–9:30pm Live A/V Performance
Beyond the Facade
KARGA by Eyup Kuş
October 2, 5:30pm–6:30pm October 2, 5:30pm–6:30pm Live Performance
Splitting Stones
Maïa Nunes
October 3, 9:30pm–11pm October 3, 9:30pm–11pm DJ
Lucia Kagramanyan
Lucia Kagramanyan
October 4, 9pm–10pm October 4, 9pm–10pm Live A/V Performance
Unbroken Jaws
Rojin Sharafi, TE-R
October 5, 9:30pm–10pm October 5, 9:30pm–10pm Live A/V Performance
Authentically Plastic & Tobias Raschbacher pres. POLYCOLLISION
Authentically Plastic & Tobias Raschbacher
Tours

Civa Ambassadors Groups: exhibition tours

Educational activities for the coded manoeuvres_sticky webs exhibition are centered around Civa Ambassador Groups: individuals from various professional backgrounds who act as ambassadors and guide visitors through the exhibition based on their personal perspectives. Klimentina Milenova created this format based on lessons learned from previous festival editions, allowing ambassadors and communities to use the allocated space to delve into specific themes and interests.

Belvedere 21
Exhibition on the lower level
Wednesday to Saturday, 12 noon and 3 pm; Thursday also at 7 pm

First come, first served

October 2, 12pm–1pm October 2, 12pm–1pm exhibition tour
Curator's tour
Eva Fischer and Djamila Grandits
October 2, 3pm–4pm (EN) October 2, 3pm–4pm (EN) exhibition tour, participatory performance lecture
Visions Beyond the Lens
Imani Rameses
October 3, 12pm–1pm (EN) and 7pm–8pm (EN) October 3, 12pm–1pm (EN) and 7pm–8pm (EN) exhibition tour
In Distortion We Meet – Getting M.A.D.

Klimentina Milenova
October 3, 3pm–4pm (EN) October 3, 3pm–4pm (EN) exhibition tour, participatory performance lecture
Visions Beyond the Lens
Imani Rameses
October 4, 12pm–1pm (EN) and 3pm–4pm (EN) October 4, 12pm–1pm (EN) and 3pm–4pm (EN) exhibition tour
Re(con)figurations: A Diffractive Exploration of Coded Manoeuvres
Felix Lenz
October 5, 12pm–1pm (DE) and 3pm–4pm (EN) October 5, 12pm–1pm (DE) and 3pm–4pm (EN) exhibition tour
Art Entertainment — Civa Festival Exhibition Tour
Laura Welzenbach
Civa Opening
Civa Opening

On October 1 at 7 pm, Stella Rollig, General Director of the Belvedere, and festival curators Eva Fischer and Djamila Grandits will host the official opening of the fourth edition of the Civa festival. The exhibition coded manoeuvres_sticky webs will open its doors to the public prior to the official evening opening, starting at 11 am.

Stella Rollig, Belvedere General Director
Eva Fischer, festival director
Djamila Grandits, festival curator

Tuesday, October 1 October 1 opening

Event Space/Exhibition Space, Belvedere 21
7pm
Civa Opening Party
Ayo Aloba, menty bb & schnuffi

The launch will be followed by a DJ set, providing the perfect opportunity for everyone to party and dance.

With Ayo Aloba, menty bb & schnuffi.

Tuesday, October 1 October 1 dj line

Blickle Kino im Belvedere21
Eventfläche / Ausstellung
8pm
Curator's tour
Eva Fischer and Djamila Grandits

“In considering the thematic focus of this year’s Civa festival, I found it intriguing from a media theory perspective that the advancement of artificial intelligence and the understanding of its underlying processes have prompted many industries, including the arts, to engage more profoundly with the concept of intelligence. Western cultures have historically held an anthropocentric worldview in which attributes such as intelligence, self-determination, and freedom are ascribed exclusively to (certain) human beings. Evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis, for example, has challenged this perspective, arguing in her research on symbiosis that human intelligence is based on symbiotic (bodily) processes. coded manoeuvres symbolizes the flow and dissemination of knowledge and explores the concept of intelligence in terms of collective action that is inextricably linked to the body. coded manoeuvres stands for various rituals and forms of communication that emphasize the communal, the symbiotic, and thus the inseparable.” —Eva Fischer 

“Ultimately, we are less interested in understanding networks as something artificial than in recognizing the confusion and imagining spaces that enthusiastically embrace the interconnectedness of worlds. Elements connect, not in a sterile way, but with a delight in friction and stickiness, creating a spatial mixture that relates bodies, affects, and language(s) to temporalities and movements without ever considering them as fixed. An entanglement filled with the testing of choreographies and relationships—an exciting, form-diverse process that makes room for desire and the imagination of coded maneuvers through sticky nets. In its organization, it allows for collaborative movement within a violently structured world.” —Djamila Grandits

Wednesday, October 2 October 2 exhibition tour

Exhibition on the lower level, Belvedere 21

First come, first served
Visions Beyond the Lens
Imani Rameses

POV: Walking into any exhibition, "Did you remember to check your eyes?" With our eyes wide o p e n, we will tour the exhibition using the format of an eye examination. Be prepared to use optic obscurations, acuity accusations, and pressurized gaze to challenge conventional Western assumptions on the neuroanatomy of the eye. Informed by cognitive neuroscientific protocols and African mythology, by the end of this tour expect your visual modality to be blurry, flipped, and in reverse.

Wednesday, October 2 October 2 exhibition tour, participatory performance lecture

Ausstellung im Untergeschoss, Belvedere 21

First come, first served
Nelly Yaa Pinkrah & Paul Feigelfeld
Nelly Yaa Pinkrah, Paul Feigelfeld

The festival’s discursive program commences on Wednesday with a conversation between cultural and media theorist and political activist Nelly Yaa Pinkrah and design and media theorist Paul Feigelfeld. In this dialogue, they will address the festival’s “coded manoeuvres” theme and lay the philosophical and media-theoretical groundwork for subsequent discussions throughout the festival.

Speakers: Nelly Yaa Pinkrah, Paul Feigelfeld

Wednesday, October 2 October 2 dialogue

Blickle Kino, Belvedere 21
4pm–5:30pm
Splitting Stones
Maïa Nunes

An experimental and live improvisational performance by Irish-Trinidadian artist Maïa Nunes exploring the primal, guttural and spectral range of the voice. Here the absence of language expands rather than restricts understanding, opening realms of non-verbal communication and inviting full embodied listening.

In this live performance, Maïa Nunes, a longtime collaborator of artist Evan Ifekoya, makes reference to Ifekoya’s installation The Vibration (Sun Light), which forms part of the Civa exhibition. Maïa Nunes is an Irish-Trinidadian transdisciplinary artist and sound therapist whose artworks weave voice, fabric, movement, and sound to create immersive and multitextured performance realms through film, audio-sculptural installations, and live performance. Nunes’s practice can be described as a form of liberation, a live process of recalling the Self in dialogue with the ancestral past.

Image: © Maïa Nunes

Wednesday, October 2 October 2 Live Performance

Event Space, Belvedere 21
5:30pm–6:30pm
Hallucinations
Claudia Larcher, Eva Fischer

On the Wednesday of the festival, media artist and filmmaker Claudia Larcher will be showing a selection of her latest works, in which she critically examines artificial intelligence and its influence on our perception. Her works create alternative realities that dissolve the binary juxtaposition of reality and virtuality as well as analogue and digital. Through AI-generated images and soundscapes, Larcher fragments identities, combines nature and technology and questions entrenched categories. In works such as ‘Das große Baumstück’, ‘Me, Myself and I’ and ‘AI and the Art of Historical Reinterpretation’, she explores new forms of being and imagined symbioses that challenge traditional notions of reality, identity and history. In the subsequent dialogue, Claudia Larcher and Eva Fischer will talk about (artificial) intelligence, critical post-humanism and how AI reflects our society.

Works:
Me Myself and I
Video, 5 min 28 sec, 16:9, stereo, 2022

Das große Baumstück
Video animation, 9 min 30 sec, 16:9, stereo, 2023

AI and the Art of Historical Reinterpretation
Video, 16:9, 2024

Claudia Larcher (AT) is an artist and filmmaker. Her work spans video animation, collage, photography, and installation, with a particular focus on the impacts and experimental uses of artificial intelligence. Her works deconstruct visual worlds of modernism, architecture, her immediate surroundings, and social spaces on the internet. 

Based in Vienna, she has presented her work in numerous exhibitions in Austria and internationally, including at Tokyo Wonder Site (Japan), Slought Foundation Philadelphia, the Weimar Art Festival, Centre Pompidou (Paris), Ars Electronica Festival (Linz), Gray Area Festival (San Francisco), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Roskilde), Manifesta 13, and Anthology Film Archives (NYC). She has received numerous awards, including the Kunsthalle Wien Prize, the Outstanding Artist Award, the Vorarlberg Art Award, the Prof. Hilde Goldschmidt Award, and the Austrian Art Award.

Currently, she is a resident of the ARTTEC program at the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT).

Image: © Claudia Larcher

Wednesday, October 2 October 2 Screening and talk

Blickle Kino, Belvedere21
7:30pm–8:45pm
Beyond the Facade
KARGA by Eyup Kuş

A new audiovisual live performance entitled Beyond the Facade by Austrian experimental filmmaker KARGA (Eyup Kuş) at the Blickle Kino presents a dynamic collage of film footage, visual effects, light, and sound.

Beyond the Facade is a cinematic audiovisual performance by Eyup Kuş, represented by his musical pseudonym KARGA at CIVA Festival 2024. The show combines experimental live electronic music with filmed images and real-time improvisations of analog light refractions projected onto the large cinema screen. Exploring themes of science, observation, perception and emotion, the performance explores the intricate dance between certainty and uncertainty, progress and imperfection.

Kuş' innovative light refraction technique, honorably mentioned by the Best Austrian Animation Festival and presented at the Austrian Film Awards gala 2023, will be shown live alongside exclusive excerpts from his new films.

Artist: KARGA by Eyup Kuş

Image: © Eyup Kuş

Wednesday, October 2 October 2 Live A/V Performance

Blickle Kino, Belvedere 21
9pm–9:30pm
In Distortion We Meet – Getting M.A.D.

Klimentina Milenova

This tour framework offers an opportunity to explore and re-think the fine line between intelligence and madness by questioning who defines these boundaries. The technological inspiration derives from the issue of model collapse in machine learning, where models trained on AI-generated content progressively deteriorate, leading to distorted interpretations—often referred to as "AI eating itself" or "hallucinating." Could this algorithmic "madness" serve as a catalyst for enhancing human agency

Thursday, October 3 October 3 exhibition tour

Exhibition on the lower level, Belvedere 21

First come, first served
Visions Beyond the Lens
Imani Rameses

POV: Walking into any exhibition, "Did you remember to check your eyes?" With our eyes wide o p e n, we will tour the exhibition using the format of an eye examination. Be prepared to use optic obscurations, acuity accusations, and pressurized gaze to challenge conventional Western assumptions on the neuroanatomy of the eye. Informed by cognitive neuroscientific protocols and African mythology, by the end of this tour expect your visual modality to be blurry, flipped, and in reverse.

Thursday, October 3 October 3 exhibition tour, participatory performance lecture

Exhibition on the lower level, Belvedere 21

First come, first served
coded manoeuvres_sticky webs
Artists and Curators Talk

On Thursday, October 3, Civa will host a discussion with artists from the exhibition coded manoeuvres_sticky webs, offering insight into their work. Curators Djamila Grandits and Eva Fischer will lead the discussion, delving into the artists’ creative approaches and their interpretations of the festival theme.

Speakers: Eva Fischer, Djamila Grandits, CROSSLUCID, Brooklyn J. Pakathi, Martina Menegon, Dagmar Schürrer, Philipp Muerling

Thursday, October 3 October 3 Talk

Blickle Kino, Belvedere 21
4pm–5:30pm
and then we danced
Levan Akin

As with other sections in the festival programme and exhibition, dance is presented as a form of coded and embodied language. The film and then we danced, directed by Georgian filmmaker Levan Akin, captures the dynamics of dance, systematically deconstructing preconceived notions of masculinity. It oscillates in an emancipatory manner between queerness and tradition, normative social constructs and coded subversion.

Film:
and then we danced, 2019
Levan Akin
113 min

Image: © Anka Gujabidze

Thursday, October 3 October 3 screening

Blickle Kino, Belvedere 21
8pm–9:45pm

Exploring queerness in staged folk dance through film
Marko Kölbl, Djamila Grandits

Levan Akin’s 2019 film and then we danced persuasively links two domains that are frequently regarded as incompatible but which are, in fact, closely related: professional folk dance on national stages and queer male sexuality. In the region spanning Southeast Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, staged folk dance occupies a central position. and then we danced offers a distinctive focus on the Georgian stage dance tradition, providing a realistic insight into this cultural phenomenon. The ensembles and dancers serve as emblems of national pride and heritage, thereby frequently conveying nationalist, conservative, and ultimately heteronormative values. When the binary and mutual attraction between men and women is staged through dancing bodies, queer bodies do not fit in.

This dialogue will explore the relationship between queerness and folk art, the expressions of traditional culture, and its staged iterations. The panel will address the conflicting relationship between queer male sexuality, traditional music, and dance, and how the medium of film provides a platform for gaining a deeper understanding of sexuality and culture. It will also examine how hidden realities become conceivable and expressed through the medium of film.

Marko Kölbl, an ethnomusicologist and ethnochoreologist at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, will address these issues with Civa curator Djamila Grandits.

Speakers: Marko Kölbl and Djamila Grandits

Thursday, October 3 October 3 Dialogue

Blickle Kino, Belvedere 21
9:45pm–10:15pm
In cooperation with mdw – Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Wien
Lucia Kagramanyan
Lucia Kagramanyan

To close the festival’s third day, we will hear a set by Lucia Kagramanyan, a Vienna-based DJ known for her NTS Radio program Panorama Yerevan, showcasing the versatility of Armenian music. In a mixture of old and new recordings of various genres, Lucia Kagramanyan explores different facets of Armenian music.

Artist: Lucia Kagramanyan

Thursday, October 3 October 3 DJ

Blickle Kino, Belvedere 21
9:30pm–11pm
Curating and Communicating in Demanding Times
Social Session with Angie-Shahira Pohl

Launched in 2022, the Social Session is a community-building program designed to foster exchange on social, political, and artistic issues, create synergy among participants, and build lasting connections, hosted and moderated by Angie-Shahira Pohl.

Friday, October 4 October 4 social session

non public programme
Curating and Communicating in Demanding Times
In Kooperation mit D—Arts / Projektbüro für Diversität

Festival Friday is all about networking within the media art scene. This event will be held in cooperation with D—Arts. In an exchange with international institutions such as HEK (House of Electronic Arts) Basel, the networking initiative ASchool, the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Ars Electronica, and the Vienna Film Museum, as well as artists and experts, we will discuss current challenges.

The workshop, titled “Curating and Communicating in Demanding Times,” will cover these challenges in a series of sessions. Topics will include strategies for navigating political events, socio-political developments, and evolving social interaction and communication forms on social media. Along with the Civa curators Eva Fischer and Angie-Shahira Pohl, the Viennese project office D—Arts will host a focus program.

Friday, October 4 October 4 networking and workshops

non-public programme
Re(con)figurations: A Diffractive Exploration of Coded Manoeuvres
Felix Lenz

Through the lens of Karen Barad's agential realism, research-led artist Felix Lenz invites participants to collectively challenge and rethink Western notions of representationalism and human exceptionalism. This tour explores the response-abilities and ethics of coding, image-making, and knowledge production. It introduces situated and embodied (artistic) practices that actively reconfigure power structures by engaging with the world as an entangled web of agencies.

Friday, October 4 October 4 exhibition tour

Exhibition on the lower level, Belvedere 21

First come, first served
skins on my bodies
curated by Djamila Grandits und Anna-Lena Panter

A meditation, a choir, a choreography.
Wandering through landscapes and imaginaries emerging around multidimensional selves, a selection of short films invites the (re)consideration of various embodiments as glitched forms of empowerment and refusal. The program gathers expressions around the notion of multiplicity in relation to bodies, skins, and surfaces, aiming to transcend the separation between online and away-from-keyboard while playfully engaging with choreographies and bugged worlds. skins on my bodies is structured in two film and video blocks as well as a performative intervention.

Featuring Bassam Issa Al Sabah & Jennifer Mehigan, Cibelle Cavalli Bastos, Katrina Daschner, Sweatmother, Vanessa A. Opoku & Philisha Kay, and Vitória Cribb.

Bassam Issa Al Sabah & Jennifer Mehigan
Uncensored Lilac, Part I:THE FUCKED AND THE FUCKERS (4’15)

Sweatmother
Untitled (9’)

Katrina Daschner
Tanz2000 (7’40’)

Cibelle Cavalli Bastos
A Picture Can’t Take Me (4’)

Bassam Issa Al Sabah & Jennifer Mehigan
Uncensored Lilac, Part II: HOT BOXING THE TAR PIT (5’50)

Vanessa A. Opoku & Philisha Kay
REST IN PEACE Simulation – with performance by Klimentina Milenova (15’) *

Bassam Issa Al Sabah & Jennifer Mehigan
Uncensored Lilac, Part III: HOE MOTHER (5’49)

Vitória Cribb
Bugs (5’)

Image: Bassam Issa Al-Sabah and Jennifer Mehigan, Uncensored Lilac, 2024, courtesy of the artist. 

Friday, October 4 October 4 performative screening programme

Blickle Kino, Belvedere 21
7pm–9pm
Unbroken Jaws
Rojin Sharafi, TE-R

The evening will conclude with a live audiovisual set by musician Rojin Sharafi and the visualist collective TE –R.

Sound artist, sound engineer, and composer of acoustic, electroacoustic, and electronic music, Rojin Sharafi explores the potential of digital music performance. Her music crosses the boundaries of different genres, drawing from various musical fields to include noise, folk, ambient, metal, and contemporary music.

TE –R is a variable collective for artistic work, founded in Vienna in 2014 by Louise Linsenbolz and Thomas Wagensommerer. TE –R navigates in and through medial spaces, shifting between image, game, and code.

Artists: Rojin Sharafi , TE –R

Friday, October 4 October 4 Live A/V Performance

Blickle Kino, Belvedere21
9pm–10pm
Art Entertainment — Civa Festival Exhibition Tour
Laura Welzenbach

This tour is right for you if you're new to media arts and wish to get an overview of the exhibition. We will maneuver through the sticky webs of these digital and non-digital worlds and visions. On this journey we will meet the entangled futures the artists envision and find out if the artworks give us the goose pumps real good art promises to do. Laura Welzenbach hosts this tour with a breeze of humor of lots of L O V E.

Saturday, October 5 October 5 exhibition tour

Exhibition on the lower level, Belvedere 21

First come, first served
Design approaches and CYBER FEMINISM INDEX
Laura Coombs, Maria Rudakova

In the first half of the afternoon discourse, New York-based graphic designer of the Cyberfeminism Index, Laura Coombs, will present an online lecture about her work and current graphic and web design approaches. In addition to her work on visual identities and editorial projects with museums, artists, and architects, Laura Coombs also teaches graphic design at Princeton University.

The Cyberfeminism Index includes posts from hackers, scientists, artists, and activists from all regions, ethnicities, and sexual orientations, reflecting on how humans can recreate themselves through technology. A review of the history of the Internet reveals that the majority of information is about the technical aspects, the military-industrial complex behind it, and the individuals – often referred to as “forefathers” – who created the architecture and protocols. However, the Internet is not merely a network of cables, servers, and computers; rather, it is an environment shaped by its inhabitants and their use.

Speaker: Laura Coombs
Moderation: Maria Rudakova

Saturday, October 5 October 5 online presentation

Presented by Vienna Business Agency
Blickle Kino, Belvedere21
3pm–3:45pm
From Social Design to Soft Clubs
Brigitte Felderer, Marissa Lôbo, Negin Rezaie, Katharina Seidler

Dance, sound, and club spaces as a subversive, political format are a recurring theme in the Civa program. This talk will explore social design and how to transform the traditional club space.

“Capitalism has long since discovered the club scene,” says Brigitte Felderer, an expert in social design. She is the director of the Social Design Studio at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, which examines urban interstitial spaces and social systems to develop and refine innovative practices within a collective and transdisciplinary framework. “A lot is happening now,” says Felderer. Do clubs need the night at all? Is there still a need for dark spaces? What types of media and opportunities are emerging? In fact, the club scene has always been about social movements. The Vienna-based Soft Club project, for instance, run by artist and activist Marissa Lobo and artist, curator, educator, and researcher Negin Rezaie, serves as a lively meeting place that promotes joy, closeness, and community. The venue is curated four times a year by different collectives and artists who celebrate with their visitors new policies of reception and hospitality. The concept is inspired by “sober parties” and takes place on Saturday afternoons. It offers an alternative to the traditional all-night club and party concepts, providing other forms of gathering, caring, and community building. The BIPOC and queer scene has established safe spaces with specific codes of conduct to prevent assault and discrimination, inviting everyone to join in a welcoming and celebratory culture that has developed there. Moderated by music editor Katharina Seidler, the discussion will center on how parties and clubs are being reimagined as social movements, which will serve as a thematic bridge to the following conversation, “Urban Encounters: The Potential of Non-Commercial Creative Spaces.”


Speakers: Brigitte Felderer, Marissa Lôbo, Negin Rezaie

Moderator: Katharina Seidler

Saturday, October 5 October 5 talk

Presented by Vienna Business Agency
Blickle Kino, Belvedere21
3pm–5pm
Wildness
Wu Tsang

The evening starts out with a screening of the 2012 documentary Wildness by filmmaker, multimedia artist, and performer Wu Tsang. The film highlights the role of clubs as sites for social and political discourse, offering insights into the dynamic and resistive world of queer club culture. Wildness portrays the Silver Platter Club in Los Angeles and prompts reflection on complex issues related to identity, community, and social change.

Documentary film:
Wildness, 2012
Wu Tsang (US)
74 min

Image: Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.

Saturday, October 5 October 5 screening

In Kooperation mit VIDC – Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation
Blickle Kino, Belvedere21
6pm–7:15pm
Urban Encounters: The Potential of Non-Commercial Creative Space
Tayo Alemi aka Authentically Plastic, Therese Kaiser, Mia Meus, Ayo Aloba

In the panel moderated by Ayo Aloba, “Urban Encounters: The Potential of Non-Commercial Creative Space,” Tayo Alemi (aka Authentically Plastic), Therese Kaiser, and Mia Meus will discuss the importance of non-productive and non-commercial spaces as vital sites of action in urban areas where social relations are negotiated and lived. These spaces foster an environment conducive to individual and collective thought, forms of expression, exchange, collaboration, and innovation.

What opportunities do collaboratively established art spaces, music clubs, initiatives, and networks offer as socially relevant venues for creating interdisciplinary and experimental works and projects?

The evening at the Blickle Kino encourages reflection on the potential and challenges of independent art spaces. What role do institutions play in creating and supporting such spaces? How are they affected by commercialization and gentrification? These questions will be examined from a global perspective, taking into account political power dynamics and mobility.

Panelists: Tayo Alemi aka Authentically Plastic, Therese Kaiser, Mia Meus

Moderator: Ayo Aloba

Tayo Alemi, aka Authentically Plastic, is a DJ, producer, artist, performer, and essayist from Kampala, Uganda. Tayo Alemi will share experiences as a co-founder of the collective and label ANTI-MASS, which has created spaces and queer events for FLINTA* artists in Uganda’s increasingly repressive social climate.

Therese Kaiser is a political scientist and managing director of the agency period. Interactive. She co-founded the RRRIOT Festival as well as the women's networks Sorority and Business Riot. She curated the Electric Spring Festival, is part of the Hyperreality club culture festival team and DJs in clubs under the name DJ Terror.

Mia Meus is a curator and designer who co-founded Design in Gesellschaft and is the art director at the Institute for Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), where she creates innovative spaces for interdisciplinary collaborations between art, science, design, and technology.

Ayo Aloba is an actor, musician, producer, and curator at Civa as well as a co-founder of the collective SOUNDS OF BLACKNESS, which emerged from the POC community to blend activism and awareness, and organizes events explicitly for them.

Saturday, October 5 October 5 talk

In Kooperation mit VIDC – Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation
Blickle Kino, Belvedere21
7:45pm–9pm
Authentically Plastic & Tobias Raschbacher pres. POLYCOLLISION
Authentically Plastic & Tobias Raschbacher

The audiovisual live set POLYCOLLISION by Authentically Plastic & Tobias Raschbacher will conclude this year’s Civa festival. This performance combines politically charged soundscapes with northern Ugandan rhythms and Afrofuturism. The set was created as part of the 2024 Artist-in-Residence Program at VIDC – Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation.

Artists: Authentically Plastic, Tobias Raschbacher

Image: © Darlyne Komukama

Saturday, October 5 October 5 Live A/V Performance

In Kooperation mit VIDC – Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation
Blickle Kino, Belvedere21
9:30pm–10pm
Sprechstunde
by Belvedere 21 art mediation team and Klimentina Milenova

'Sprechstunde' is an interactive format of Belvedere 21 which invites visitors to sit together and speak freely about pieces or aspects of the exhibition. Each Sprechstunde invites one artist who is open for a discussion.

Upcoming 'Sprechstunde' dates are:
05.12.2024:
Sprechstunde: Mensch, Maschine, Intelligenz: Wer formt die Zukunft?
16.01.2025:
Sprechstunde: Die Erde als lebendiges System. Eine neue Perspektive auf unsere Umwelt?

Always from 5pm to 6:30pm.

Thursday, December 5 December 5 Discourse

Exhibition on the lower level, Belvedere 21
More than Human
curated by Marija Milovanovic

The impact of artificial intelligence is clearly noticeable across many areas, triggering peculiar, unsettling feelings and apocalyptic premonitions among some individuals. These notions influence our thoughts and actions – in fact, all interactions between humans, nature, and artificial intelligence. The film programme More than Human seeks to explore a broader definition of intelligence, encompassing different meanings in different cultural and scientific contexts. Its goal is to deepen the connections between humans, nature, and technology, challenge established concepts, and embrace new possibilities, ideas, and forms of intelligence.

Tickets
Free to attend, but only with a free event ticket.

Viktor Schimpf
Machines of Loving Grace (25‘)

Claudia Larcher
The Artist in the Machine (3,5’)

Sean Buckelew
Drone (15,5‘)

Manu Luksch
Algo-Rhythm (13‘)

Pinar Yoldas
Kitty AI : Artificial Intelligence for Governance (12,5’)

Image: Machines of Loving Grace (Film Still), 2022 © 2022 Viktor Schimpf

Thursday, November 21 November 21 screening

Blickle Kino, Belvedere21
6:30pm