Spike n° 59 – Lifestyle Protocols

Conversation
We cannot take for granted that the decentralisation of networks, markets, and communication is in itself a good thing. Relations of power just work differently there. Jaya Klara Brekke and Francesco Sebregondi discuss the common ground between Forensic Architecture and blockchain technology.

Essay: A Model for a Quantitative Society
Décor and theatricality have returned with a vengeance after more than a century of being shunned as art's lowbrow cousins. Marcel Broodthaers and Palle Nielsen were among the first artists to register the implications of this shift, anticipating the rise of immersion, affective networking, storytelling, surveillance, and monetisation that came along with it. By Antony Hudek

Portrait George Maciunas
George Maciunas founded one of the most influential art movements of the 20th century: Fluxus. Embodying its principle that art must not congeal, in everything he did he transformed the lives of artists and in so doing transformed the fate of SoHo. By Gerry Beegan

Portrait Bless
The origins of the fashion industry's most provocative and innovative strategies had a forerunner in BLESS, the enigmatic fashion studio founded between Paris and Berlin in the late 1990s. By David Lieske

Technology
Ted Nelson invented hypertext and hypermedia and imagined a future of online publishing, public cloud storage, internet cafes, and even realist CGI. But monopolistic megacorporations and social media streams bear little resemblance to the utopian vision of this now octogenarian evangelist for an alternative internet. An interview by Amelia Stein

Interview Peter Kubelka
The Austrian filmmaker talks to Asad Raza about a life in film and how the art of cooking isn't hard to master.

Architecture
Cruising Pavilion make shows exploring the architectural aspects of cruising culture. They're interested in widening the definition of “cruising” to mean more than just gay men looking for sex with strangers in public spaces. By Dean Kissick

Fashion
As products and media started to blur into each other, in the wake of a cultural repositioning of the image through social media streams, fashion led the way in turning content into a new art form. By Thom Bettridge

Q/A Boris Groys
What is socialist networking?

Design
With an oeuvre that covers everything from agitprop cans stuffed with cow-dung to ergo-dynamic lounge chairs, anyone in search of a new design manifesto would need to start with Victor Papanek, a guru for socially and ecologically responsible design and pedagogy. By Alison J. Clarke

Interview Wu Tsang
Wu Tsang's works blend reality and fantasy, often in collaborations that bring together the languages of performance and storytelling.  On the heels of a move to Athens she talked to Aimee Lin

Q/A Mat Dryhurst
Can we design our way out of platform capitalism?

Artist's Favourites
By Haseeb Ahmed

Field Notes
Alternative models for art patronage are emerging amidst the crisis of neoliberalism. Founded in 1990, New Patrons helps to articulate and realise citizens' wishes for a public work of art, capable of more than just managing supply and demand. By Dominikus Müller

Q/A Ayzit Bostan
Is design political?

Exhibition Histories
Florence Bonnefous and Pierre Joseph on “Les Ateliers du Paradis” (1990) at Air de Paris in Nice

One Work
Rob Horning on the nasal spray Spravato™

The End is Night
“You Can't Tweet Adorno” by Alison M. Gingeras & Jamieson Webster

Curator's Key
Stefanie Hessler on Juan Downey's The Laughing Alligator (1978)

Image Contributions
By Shawn Maximo, Amy Lien & Enzo Camacho, Boy Vereecken, Marlie Mul

Seduction
by Peter Kubelka, Fiona Duncan, Justin Polera, Tobias Rehberger, Johanna Meyer-Grohbrügge

Focus View
“The Brotherhood of New Blockheads (1996–2002)” at Kunsthalle Zürich. An interview with curator Peter Belyi by Matthew Hanson

Views Austria
“On the New: Young Scenes in Vienna” at Belvedere 21 by Kimberly Bradley;  Klara Lidén at Secession and Christian Kosmas Mayer at Mumok by Robert Schulte, Maria Lassnig and Arnulf Rainer at Lentos Linz by Fina Esslinger

Views Germany
“Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2019: Hito Steyerl” at Akademie der Künste by Laurie Rojas; “Bauhaus Imaginista”at Haus der Kulturen der Welt by Lennart Wolff; Andy Warhol at Galerie Buchholz by Bianca Heuser; “The Cabinet of Ramon Haze”at Museum Abteiberg by Dorothea Zwirner

Views USA
Harmony Hammond at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum by Ariella Wolens; Alice Neel at David Zwirner and “Revolution from Without ...” by Allison Hewitt Ward; “Tobias Wong, Untitled (Golden)…” at Bureau of General Services by 

View Jakarta
Arahmaiani at Museum MACAN by Harry Burke

View Hong Kong
“Noguchi for Danh Vo: Counterpoint” at M+1 Pavilion by Shanzhai Lyric

View London
Rachel Rose at Pilar Corrias by Alex Scrimgeour

Views Paris
Rosemarie Castoro at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac; Theaster Gates at Palais de Tokyo by Charles Teyssou

View Warsaw
Janek Simon at Ujazdowski Castle by Barbara Piwowarska