Essay: Hyperworld Underworlds
We seem to be living through the revival of esotericism and technobelief in a disenchanted age, but what we are witnessing is no comeback. The gods we pray to and spells we cast have, in fact, been here all along, now they just bear different names. The reality is that the Enlightenment has yet to come…
By Ella Plevin
Artist Talk
Spike brought together American poets and friends
CAConrad and
Ariana Reines to talk about the relationship between ritual and writing. A conversation about the bones of poetry
Interview
Jim Shaw
Jim Shaw's dreams and waking visions tap into the deep reservoir of the American unconscious, which runs through his oeuvre and inspires his neo-surreal sculptural objects and installations. His most ambitious project is the ongoing development of a religion that revolves around a goddess known only as “O”.
By Stanya Kahn
Fin de Siècle
The protagonists of Viennese modernism knew that technology and magic are inherently connected. For them it was clear that the spiritual opened new dimensions in a time ruled by science. How does this relate to the resurgence of magic today?
By Elisabeth von Samsonow
Portrait Lu Yang
Lu Yang fuses virtual with actual architectures, luring the viewer into syncretic hells of augmented realities. With high-energy soundtracks and by tapping into the realms of ancient Buddhism, cyberfeminism, and technoreligions, her installations and videos conjure spiritual stimulants, curious deities, death, and posthuman life forms.
By Harry Burke
Q/A Porpentine Charity Heartscape
Why are people afraid of witches?
Field Notes
The worlds of technology and spirituality are converging once again, but something new is emerging. It is too early to say what its effects will be and the right language to describe it is still taking shape.
Hans Ulrich Obrist and
Ben Vickers on new dimensions of understanding in lines of code.
Q/A Erik Davis
Why has so much of millennial culture turned towards psychedelics?
Portrait Suzanne Treister
Crafting an alternative history of the twentieth century through cybernetics, psychedelia, and tarot, Suzanne Treister's sprawling projects
trace a vertiginously networked world where everything is connected and nothing is meaningless.
By Lars Bang Larsen
One Work
Lynn Zelevansky on
Paul Thek's “Processions” (1969-1973)
The End Is Night
“Disenchanted beyond belief”
by Alison M. Gingeras & Jamieson Webster
Curator's Key
Pádraic E. Moore on
John McCracken's “Red Pyramid” (1974)
Q/A Matt Liston
Why did you found a blockchain religion?
Science
Why should we continue to live as before, when we could become one with our dogs, live as pigs, have butts like fireflies, or turn into something entirely different that cannot yet be imagined?
By Dean Kissick
Psychology
Reality as a clay, malleable simply through the power of thought, is the premise of a magical thinking. Social relationships are giving way to the imagination because it alone can manifest desire and fantasy – just after hitting the return key, that is.
By Rob Horning
Books
The 650-page doorstopper
Imponderable documents a vast range of objects and ephemera relating to magic and the occult, all from the collection of the artist
Tony Oursler.
By Philomena Epps
Artist's Favourites
By Bhanu Kapil
Postcard
from Bali by
Ashley Bickerton
Seduction
by
Eoghan Ryan,
Franziska Wildförster,
Lucas Zwirner,
Emily McDermott, and
Simon Wang
Q/A Victoria Sin
How does technology change reality?
Focus View
“Spellbound. Magic, Ritual, Witchcraft”by Ella Plevin
Views Austria
Kris Lemsalu at Secession by Dan Udy,
Ernst Caramelle at Mumok by Maximilian Geymüller, and
Louise Lawler at Sammlung Verbund by
Bob Nickas in Vienna; Stuart Middleton at Künstlerhaus Graz by Johanna Rainer
Views Germany
Beatriz González at KW Institute for Contemporary Art by Federica Bueti, Henrike Naumann at Galerie im Turm and Irina Rastorgueva & Thomas Martin BQ by Penny Rafferty in Berlin; Cady Noland at MMK by
Bob Nickas in Frankfurt; Jörg Immendorf at Haus der Kunst by Daniela Stöppel in Munich; Mary Beth Edelson at Kunsthalle Münster by Alex Scrimgeour
Views Switzerland
Tania Pérez Córdova at Kunsthalle Basel and Ka Moser at Kunsthalle Bern by Adriana Lara
Views New York
Friedrich Kunath at Blum & Poe by Ariella Wolens and Kevin Beasley at the Whitney by
Aria Dean
View Taipei
“Post-Nature – A Museum as an Ecosystem” – 11th Taipei Biennial by Harry Burke
Views Los Angeles
Zoe Leonard at MOCA and Betye Saar at Roberts Projects by Keith J. Varardi
View Brussels
René Daniëls at WIELS by Rita Vitorelli
View London
McDermott & McGough at Studio Voltaire by Oliver Basciano
View Shanghai
”Heteroglossia” at HOW Art Museum
