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live

Aporien der Anwendung. Künstliche Intelligenzen in Geisteswissenschaften und Künsten

Lecture / Berlin / 21 October 2026

Bildquelle: Till Rückwart (Bildmontage: Plattform-Glitch; KI-generiert mit Nano Banana 2, 2026)

Von Aneignung zu Enteignung – Wie sich der Urheberrechtsdiskurs in den Künsten durch KI verändert, Cornelia Sollfrank im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung. Diese befragt das Spannungsfeld, in dem sich das Institut für Theaterwissenschaft bewegt – zwischen einer Kritik dogmatischer Anwendungsnarrative und experimentell-reflexiven Ansätzen. Im Dialog der Disziplinen entstehen neue Sicht-, Hör-, Denk- und Darstellungsweisen, die technische Verfahren wie die Entwicklung und den Einsatz von Künstlicher Intelligenz nicht isoliert betrachten, sondern in ihren kulturellen, ästhetischen, gesellschaftlichen und politischen Zusammenhängen verhandeln.

Eine Ringvorlesung des Instituts für Theaterwissenschaft, Freie Universität Berlin, Hörsaal im Institut für Theaterwissenschaft Grunewaldstraße 35, 12165 Berlin, 18:15 – 19:45

exhibition

After the Dream of Electric Sheep

exhibition @ Tokyo Atlas International / 10 October – 20 December 2026, Telecom Center Building 5F, Tokyo

A documentary exhibition presenting the unfinished curatorial project of the late Yamamine Junya, who played a key role in developing the exhibition’s initial concept. Through archives of his distinctive practices in Japan and abroad, the exhibition traces the trajectory of his work and thought.

The exhibition presents an archival booklet and exhibition plan documenting the unrealized exhibition concept. The artists included in these materials are listed below.

Au Sow Yee × Chen Yow-Ruu (HER Lab Space), Marina Lisa Komiya, Wu Chi-Yu, Zhou Xiaohu, Nakitto Sandra Suubi, Issam Kourbaj, Richard Mosse, FOODSCAPES, Cornelia Sollfrank, Li Yi-Fan, DIS, Mira M. Yang, Koizumi Meiro, Jordan Wolfson, Lauren McCarthy, Sun Woo, Julius von Bismarck, Jura Shust, Adel Abidin, Watanabe Shiori, Haroon Mirza, Mori Osamu, Sonia Gomes, Tarek Atoui, LuYang, Blast Theory, Leandro Erlich, Giacomo Zaganelli

https://tokyoatlas.jp/en/after-the-dream-of-electric-sheep

live

Kultur unter Druck

Diskussionsveranstaltung und Open Studios im Kunstquartier Bethanien / Berlin. 30. April 2026

Unter dem Motto „Kultur unter Druck – Wie Kulturpolitik zum Machtinstrument wird – und was auf dem Spiel steht“ laden bildende Künstler*innen ein zu einem kulturpolitischen Gespräch und einem Besuch in ihren Ateliers.

Kultur unter Druck weiterlesen
project

ANTAGONISTAS: resistências algorítmicas

Exhibition // Museu de Arte Contemporanea // Sao Paulo (BR)

29 November 2025 – 22 February 2026

Illustration: nag_05b, in: „Fix my Code“, e-book, EECLECTIC, Berlin, 2021

ANTAGONISTS: algorithmic resistances seeks to subvert this logic. Drawing from the MAC USP collection, the exhibition contextualizes the vast production of artists, activists, and scientists who, since the 1960s, have proposed strategies of resistance to hegemonic information technologies. Even with limited resources, they devised alternative ways to engage with the emerging regime of data and algorithms forming around them.

http://www.mac.usp.br/mac/expos/2025/antagonistas/index.html

live

INTERFICTION XXX/2025. Network F(r)ictions

Interdisziplinäre Workshop-Tagung im Rahmen des 42. Kasseler Dokumentarfilm- und Videofestes/ Kassel/ 21&22 November 2025

INTERFICTION XXX/2025. Network F(r)ictions

Teilnehmerinnen: Chris Regn, Cornelia Sollfrank, Stefanie Wuschitz, Daniela Brugger, Stefanie Bräuer, Katharina Pelosi/Swoosh Lieu.

research

Critical knowledge and communication infrastructure 

Workshop at Deutscher Künstlerbund Berlin with Wiki-riot squad and Shusha Niederberger as part of the exhibition Nothing comes without its world! 19 November 2025

Screenshot

The community-based platforms Mastodon and Wikipedia offer alternative spaces for networking and exchange. The workshop brings together the two areas of critical content production and autonomous infrastructure. In order to maintain and expand the tech*feminist community, an introduction to editorial work at Wikipedia will be combined with the independent social network Mastodon. The aim of the workshop is to network previous activities in the field of feminist content production and, through the context of the Deutscher Künstlerbund e.V., to address the tech*feminist art community in Berlin as well as interested parties from the art scene and make their expertise available to Wikipedia.

Download Workshop Flyer

exhibition

Nothing comes without its world!

Exhibition at Deutsche Künstlerbund Berlin, 12 September – 21 November 2025.

On the occasion of the presentation of the HAP Grieshaber Prize 2025, Cornelia Sollfrank takes the invitation to a solo exhibition as an opportunity not only to present a selection of her own works, but also to provide insight into the “world” that this work has helped to create: a long-standing relational network of Berlin-based and international agents. Including: BethaSpace, bildwechsel – umbrella association for women, media, culture; Disruption Network Lab Berlin; EECLECTIC; Furtherfield London; God’s Entertainment; medienwerkstatt im kulturwerk des bbk berlin; monoskop (Dusan Barok); mz* baltazar’s lab; nag_team; neural Magazine (Alessandro Ludovico); OFFICE IMPART; panke.gallery; #purplenoise; T-INA Darling; VNS Matrix; Andy Warhol; Zentrum für Netzkunst e.V.

Press release with detailed information.

live

Video documentation of book launch: Embodied Data and Planetary Thinking.

The book „Contemporaneity in Embodied Data Practices“ was presented on 28 April 2025 at medienwerkstatt des bbk berlin as part of the lecture series FIXTURES, conceived by Ilka Forst and Jo Zahn. The authors Cornelia Sollfrank and Felix Stalder engaged in a conversation with Kevin Rittberger. The book is part of the series The Contemporary Condition edited by Geoff Cox, Jacob Lund and Nicolas Malevé, Sternberg Press. ISBN 978-1-915609-63-2

exhibition

Together Yet Alone

Olomouc (CZ) // Studio G21 Gallery as part of XY festival @galeriexyolomouc

Curated by Tomáš Javůrek and Andreas Gajdošík through @screensavergallery.

project

HAP Grieshaber Prize awarded

HAP Grieshaber Prize of VG Bild-Kunst 2025 endowed with 25,000€ goes to Cornelia Sollfrank.

Press release

publication

Contemporaneity in Embodied Data Practices

by Cornelia Sollfrank and Felix Stalder

Edited by Geoff Cox, Jacob Lund, Nicolas Malevé

ISBN 978-1-915609-63-2

project

Thoughts of a Server

Sound piece, 2024.

An internet server, a usually invisible part of technical infrastructure, develops an awareness and thinks about its permanent accessibility and its uninterrupted services. Is this the purpose of its existence, its everyday, uncomplaining functioning? And in whose service does it function? What is created by its work and who benefits from it? Is it a neutral machine or does its work serve a higher purpose? What are its dreams? https://soundcloud.com/purplenoise2018/thouhgts-of-a-server

live, research

Re/Embodied Data. Ambiguities of Knowing

In this symposium, we will investigate the relationship between quantifiable and experiential, abstracted and embodied knowledges.

Berlin / Collaboration between Berlin Open Lab (UdK + TU Berlin) and ZHdK Zürich, Einsteinufer 43, 10587 Berlin / Thursday, 20 June 2024, 09:30

https://reembodieddata.xyz

live, research

Breathing Data – workshop

@ /ETC 2024 (Eclectic Tech Carnival) hosted by Heart of Code, Berlin. Workshop with Cornelia Sollfrank taking place Friday 7 June 2024 at 5pm, Mariannenplatz 2a, 10997 Berlin.
Full program: https://eclectictechcarnival.org/

publication

Review of anonymous_warhol-flowers

Written By Agnes Ferenczi for Kate Vass Gallery, Zürich

Detail view of anonymous_warhol-flowers@Apr_16_16.06.41_2019, Digital Print on paper, Size: 60 x 60 cm. Available at Kate Vass Gallery, Zurich

The “anonymous_warhol-flowers”, an integral part of the ongoing artistic research project “This Is Not By Me”, was initiated in 2004 by Cornelia Sollfrank. This project represents Sollfrank’s exploration into themes such as digital authorship, originality, copyright, and ownership. By employing the net.art generator with a focus on the iconic Warhol flowers as a case study, she examines these concepts. In this article, we delve into the creation process and background of this work, offering insights into the complexities and legal nuances of artistic expression in the digital age.

Full text here

exhibition

net.art generator

A look back at the 25-year history of this legendary software art project and the projects that have emerged from it.

Bonn / Frauenmuseum / Opening 7 April 2024

live

À la recherche de l’information perdue

Bonn / Frauenmuseum / 6 April 2024 / 19:00

Performance lecture by Cornelia Sollfrank that makes a (techno-)feminist comment on the entanglements of gender, technology and information politics exemplified by the case of Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Pre-opening of the show „Beyond Algorithms – Digital Utopia.“

live, research

DataCyborgs

Ljubljana / Aksioma / Kino Šiška / 27 February 2024

DataCyborgs
DataCyborgs
Photos: Miha Fras/Aksioma. CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0

A partially algorithmically generated embodied conversation between three different logics. Lecture performance, Cornelia Sollfrank and Alexandre Puttick

Data cyborgs are hybrid beings. Digital data is their key component, but this data is related to other entities in manifold ways. In this case, an amateur breather provides body data by performing breathing exercises and capturing them with the help of various sensors. The assiduous data scientist studies this data, analyses it and processes it in order to extract knowledge. Eventually, the data itself takes a stance and insists on its own perspective.

Link to conference website

live, research

(un)real data – real effects

Ljubljana / Aksioma / 27-28 February 2024

The 15th edition of Tactics&Practice explores how the ambiguous quality of data can be used as a tool to produce real-world outcomes. Can the act of purposely creating data provide agency within data-driven systems? Is it possible to manipulate data to create specific effects?

Conference program

research

Breathing Data

The artistic research project “Breathing Data” is based on a self-experiment. Under investigation is the effect of personalized measurement techniques (bio feedback, body tracking, self-quantification) on individual behavior, and vice versa. The application area of the research is breathing. Throughout the project, the focus is on the interaction between the objectively collected data and the subjective state of mind determined by introspection. This “dialogue with the data” will generate a narrative in which the distinction between perception and measurement, between consciousness and body, and thus between mind and matter will be set in vibration. the project is part of the SNF-funded research project Latent Spaces at ZHdK Zürich.

Doku wiki: https://breathing-data.multiplace.org

live

Caring and Narrating

1 December 2023, Berlin, Gallery /rosa

Presentation of two books: Yvonne Volkart, Technologies of Care. From Sensing Technologies to an Aesthetics of Attention in a More-than-Human World, and Birgit Schneider, Der Anfang einer neuen Welt. Wie wir vom Klimawandel erzählen, ohne zu verstummen. Berlin: Matthes & Seitz 2023. Moderated by Cornelia Sollfrank. More info: https://www.panke.gallery/event/caring-and-narrating/

Watch documentation on YouTube

live

Organization as Medium of Contemporary Art

Lüneburg 13/ 14 November 2023

Kunstraum Lüneburg in collaboration with the Centre for Digital Cultures at Leuphana University.

Workshop day 1 

Workshop day 2

publication

Son[i]a #384
Cornelia Sollfrank

Radio Web MacBa

Conversation: Anna Ramos. Script and sound production: Verónica Lahitte. Post-producción: Roc Jiménez de Cisneros. Voice over: Javiera Cadiz. Breathing choir: Grupo de trabajo de RWM.

interview

WebRadio MACBA – Interview with Cornelia Sollfrank

Barcelona, 25 October 2023

Thanks to Anna Ramos from MACBA Barcelona for taking the time to record and edit such a long interview for the MACBA WebRadio! Full credits you find on their page!

project

TammTamm – Artists informing Politicians

Installation view TammTamm at „Agents & Provocateurs“, HMKV Dortmung (2010)

The campaign “Tamm-Tamm – Artists Inform Politicians” took place in Hamburg in 2005/06 and was a protest against the newly planned Maritime Museum. In order to complement the ongoing HafenCity urban development project with a cultural “attraction”, the Hamburg City Parliament had offered the controversial private collector Peter Tamm a large historic building and 30 million euros to transfer his private maritime collection into a museum. The organizers of the protest assumed that the collection did not meet the scientific standards of a public museum and that the notorious right-wing collector would use the premises to celebrate his authoritarianism.

The campaign took the political leaders into responsibility. For each elected member of Hamburg’s parliament, an artist acted as godfather/ godmother and engaged in a personal dialogue with the politicians in order to provide background information on the project. Documentation of each encounter was collected on a website, which proved to be an effective tool against the opportunism of the local media.

https://artwarez.org/projects/tammtamm/

live

Datafication and Embodiment: An open-ended talk

14 June 2023 / Kunsthal, Aarhus, Denmark

Cornelia Sollfrank and Felix Stalder, artist researchers who currently work together at Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK), will explore digital abstractions and material embodiments as two mutually constitutive dimensions of reality that frame each other in incomplete and non-deterministic ways.

https://www.kunsthalaarhus.dk/en/Events/2023-Talk-And-Workshop-By-Felix-Stalder-Og-Cornelia-Sollfrank-Datafication-And-Embodiment-An-Open-Ended-Talk

publication

Fix My Code

e-book by Cornelia Sollfrank and Winnie Soon

Breaking points between code and culture – exemplified by the net.art generator. Starting with a broken tool, the two artists engage in a thrilling dialogue about code, the aesthetics of the dysfunctional and the female coder as the lasting exception.

Fix My Code – cover
Fix My Code – cover
Fix My Code – cover

Open access at EECLECTIC Berlin

exhibition

Continuous Shift

Konsthall Kristianstad / 2022-2023

The intersection between the digital and the artistic has received a lot of attention in recent years. Many have heard expressions like AI, crypto, NFTs and blockchain but what do they mean and what relationship do they have to contemporary art? Much of what has been presented in the media as digital art has left us both curious and confused.

What is the human relationship with technology and digitisation in an age when they seem to be completely fused? Can the differences between life, art and technology be discerned? How do professional contemporary artists work with ever new digital possibilities?

For Continuous Shift, the art gallery invites six arists whiose work enable active encounters between art and technology and raise awareness for this relatively niche genre. Through physical and visual experiences that activate multiple senses, visitors can experience the digital art world in our space. In the Kristianstad Art Gallery’s premises, unique spaces will emerge that demand our attention.

https://regionmuseet.se/kalender/continous-shift/

project
Writing the History of the Future, ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2019

net.art generator

Since 1998
The net.art generator is a computer program (Perl script) which collects and recombines material from the Internet to create a new website or a new image. Since its launch in 1998, it became a classic of net art and got legendary due to its ability to keep connecting to new discourses and thus constantly updating itself.

net.art-generator.com

project

#purplenoise

Since 2018
#purplenoise is an interdisciplinary technofeminist research group that uses real-life events to explore social media as the arena for protest and political activation. The group was initiated in 2018 by Cornelia Sollfrank.

https://purplenoise.org/

live

Cyberfeminism Index Book Launch and Reading

trust.support / Berlin / 25 January 2023

Book launch of Cyberfeminism Index together with Mindy Seu (New York). In Cyberfeminism Index (cyberfeminismindex.com/), hackers, scholars, artists, and activists of all regions, races and sexual orientations consider how humans might reconstruct themselves by way of technology. Edited by designer and researcher Mindy Seu, Cyberfeminism Index includes more than 700 short entries of radical techno-critical activism in a variety of media, including excerpts from academic articles and scholarly texts; descriptions of hackerspaces, digital rights activist groups, and bio-hacktivism; and depictions of feminist net art and new media art.

https://trust.support/events/cyberfeminism-index-book-launch-and-reading

live

We don’t die – we multiply!

Art Academy Kassel / 4 – 6 Novmeber / 2022

Panel discussion as part of the conference „Arbeit an den Strukturen – Praxisbasierte Forschung in documenta- und Ausstellungsstudien“ (Working on structures – practice-based research in documenta and exhibition studies). The panel addressed the combination of institutional and artistic archiving practices as a way of maintaining temporary, ephemeral, project-based and collective practices by the example of the Old Boys Network. Participants: Dušan Barok, Birgitta Coers and Cornelia Sollfrank. Moderation: Malin Kuht.

https://kunsthochschulekassel.de/willkommen/veranstaltungen/events/arbeit-an-strukturen-praxisbasierte-forschung-in-documenta-und-ausstellungsstudien-tagung.html

research

Latent Spaces – Performing Ambiguous Data

Zürich University of the Arts / since 2021

The research project Latent Spaces takes place in the datafied contemporary and is based at Zürich University of the Arts. The term latent space refers to a (technical/conceptual) realm in which different possibilities co-exist before one (or more) become realized, and it refers to ambiguity, the state in which different valid readings co-exist within a system of meaning. Drawing on the strength of artistic practices, the project develops and performs these perspectives in individual projects not just through critical reflection but also through artistic interventions/creations. Participants include Dr. Felix Stalder, Dr. Alexandre Puttick, Shusha Niederberger, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Gordan Savicic and Dr. Cornelia Sollfrank. Funded by SNF.

http://latentspaces.zhdk.ch/

exhibition

WetWare

New York / June 2022

WETWARE showcases nine artists to celebrate and support their work and the upcoming publication CYBERFEMINISM INDEX. The curator Mindy Seu presents seminal cyberfeminist artworks as NFTs in collaboration with the New Museum and Feral File. Artists include: Cornelia Sollfrank, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Linda Dement, Mary Maggic, Morehshin Allahyari, Prema Murthy, Shu Lea Cheang, Skawennati, and VNS Matrix.

https://feralfile.com/exhibitions/wetware-tkl

writing

My first NFT – and why it was not a live-changing experience

Cornelia Sollfrank / 31 May 2022
From Commons to NFTs” is an (expanded) writing series initiated by Shu Lea Cheang, Felix Stalder & Ewen Chardronnet. Cautioned by the speculative bubble (burst) of NFTs, the series brings back the notion of commons from around the turn of the millennium to reflect upon and intervene in the transformation of the collective imagination and its divergent futures. Every last day of the month Makery publishes a new contribution of these “chain essays”. Fifth text by Cornelia Sollfrank.

https://www.makery.info/en/2022/05/31/english-my-first-nft-and-why-it-was-not-a-life-changing-experience/

PDF

writing

obn_a – A situated Archive of the Old Boys Network

The text is a critical reflection by Cornelia Sollfrank on building an archive of the Old Boys Network. The work was part of „Networks of Care“ that offered a platform at nGbK Berlin in 2021, enabling an exchange of ideas and information between practitioners and experts concerning strategies for dealing with artistic estates, private and public archives, or idle documentation volumes. Editors: Anna Schäffler, Friederike Schäfer, Nanne Buurman, AG Networks of Care, nGbK, Berlin.

https://ngbk.de/templates/ngbkberlinmelior/shop/index.php?letter=N&lang=

PDF

live

Encounters in the Archival Commons

Berlin / 25 March 2022

Panel discussion as part of the conference „The Whole Life. Archives & Imaginaries“ at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.

https://www.hkw.de/de/programm/projekte/veranstaltung/p_195904.php

live

Archiving a Network – the Case of the Old Boys Network

Hong Kong / 17 March 2022

New Approaches to Collecting and Preserving Complex Research-Based Art and Art Projects, Museum M+. Presentation and Workshop together with Dušan Barok and Anna Schäffler.

exhibition

NfTNeTArT – from Net Art to Art NFT

panke.gallery and Office IMPART / Berlin / February – March 2022

The exhibition NfTNeTArT – from Net Art to Art NFT brings together nine international artists that use algorithmic or generative systems as their artistic language. Confronting recent technologies and blockchain applications, the artists‘ strategies range from aesthetic or narrative, to critical or rather performative investigations. They equally explore the limits and possibilities of NFTs. Featuring historical net art activities next to very recent works developed specifically for the occasion, the exhibition creates a dialogical environment in which classic network phenomena and cutting-edge technologies interact. Artists: Kim Asendorf, LaTurbo Avedon, Sarah Friend, LIA, Jonas Lund, Rhea Myers, Rafaël Rozendaal, Cornelia Sollfrank, Harm van den Dorpel.

https://www.panke.gallery/exhibition/nftnetart/

exhibition

Writing the History of the Future

ZKM Karlsruhe / 23 February 2019 – 9 January 2022

In an extraordinary compilation, ZKM presents the main works from its globally unique media art collection. The exhibition Writing the History of the Future exemplifies the transformation of art due to the changing technologies of production, reception, and distribution. It also shows how artists anticipate media and social practices that will only become self-evident for society in general years later. As the title of the exhibition says, they write the history of the future.

https://zkm.de/de/ausstellung/2019/02/writing-the-history-of-the-future

exhibition

Open Codes. Networked Commons

Nam June Paik Art Center / Seoul / 1 July – 24 October 2021

© Nam June Paik Art Center, Bak Hyongryol

Open Codes. Networked Commons is an exhibition that provides a new way to look at the world we live in today; a world that is shaped by codes. It analyzes the digital infrastructure built and maintained by digital codes. Communication with computers is essential part of our life and we are confronted daily with computer screens and user interfaces. This exhibition, though, is designed to engage with the inherent nature and the creative potentials of computer codes, beneath the surface of the everyday user experience. In collaboration with ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.

https://njpart.ggcf.kr/open-codes-networked-commons/

interview, publication

Aesthetics, Commons and the Production of the Subject

Cornelia Sollfrank and Felix Stalder / 2021

The two editors of the volume Aesthetics of the Commons (Diaphanes 2021), Cornelia Sollfrank and Felix Stalder, discuss with Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture (WPCC) the potential and meanings of the digital commons in creating new subjectivities and new imaginaries on and off the internet.

https://www.westminsterpapers.org/article/id/920/

writing

The Art of Getting Organized. A Different Approach to Old Boys Network.

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2021

This text explores the dynamics underlying the Old Boys Network as an hybrid form of political self-organization. Shapeshifting between a network, a group, a temporary collective, a structure, an infrastructure or a dust cloud, OBN remained elusive while building on affective involvement and activation as a their micropolitical strategy.

PDF

interview

Buen Vivir. Interview with Penny Travlou on collaborative practices in emerging networks.

Athens / 31 May 2021

Framed by her long-standing research on collaborative practices, geographer and ethnographer Penny Travlou introduces two projects she has been involved lately: Platohedro, a space, a platform and community based in Medellín, Colombia, and the Feminist Autonomous Research Center in Athens (FAC). Platohedro refers to the indigenous concepts of Buen Vivir and Buen Conocer and works on adapting them to the contemporary living conditions in urban societies, while FAC puts an emphasis on commnity-based autonomous knowledge production. Both are concerned with forms of thinking and working together that allow for creating alternatives to extractivist, colonial, racist and anti-feminist modes of (knowledge)production.

https://creatingcommons.zhdk.ch/buen-vivir-interview-with-penny-travlou-on-collaborative-practices-in-emergin-networks/index.html

interview

SOS – Salon for Open Secrets.

Vienna / 12 May 2021

Patrícia J. Reis and Stefanie Wuschitz from Mz*Baltazar’s Laboratory interview Cornelia Sollfrank about her ground-breaking work in early Cyberfeminism until now. They discuss the dynamics of collaboration, the sharing of experience and knowledge; they talk about autonomous infrastructures, platforms of visibility and many other topics.

https://www.mzbaltazarslaboratory.org/sos-salon-of-open-secrets/

live, publication

Fix my Code – book launch

ZKM Karlsruhe // online // 14 April 2021

Cornelia Sollfrank and Winnie Soon present the open access publication »Fix My Code« and show how the »net.art generator« as a conceptual tool has not only produced new art continuously, but also keeps on generating new discourses.

Participants: Cornelia Sollfrank, Winnie Soon, Janine Sack, Morgane Stricot and Matthieu Vlaminck, Annet Dekker (moderation), Margit Rosen. Link

exhibition

Melting Point

Festival Acces-s / Billère (F) / 8 October 2020 – 2 April 2021

Social networks, applications, platforms, wikis… from youtubers to the creators of electrocybernetic technologies, from digital photography to interactive narratives, from net-art to webdesign, from glitch artists to virtual communities, Melting Point explores a hybrid web that can be conjugated in the plural.

https://acces-s.org/agenda/melting-point

interview

Aesthetics, Commons and the Production of the Subject: An Interview with Cornelia Sollfrank and Felix Stalder

London / 31 March 2021

The two editors of the volume Aesthetics of the Commons (Diaphanes 2021), Cornelia Sollfrank and Felix Stalder, discuss with WPCC journal the potential and meanings of the digital commons in creating new subjectivities and new imaginaries on and off the internet.

https://www.westminsterpapers.org/article/id/920/

publication

Aesthetics of the Commons

What do a feminist server, an art space located in a public park in North London, a ‘pirate’ library of high cultural value yet dubious legal status, and an art school that emphasizes collectivity have in common? They all demonstrate that art can play an important role in imagining and producing a real quite different from what is currently hegemonic; that art has the possibility to not only envision or proclaim ideas in theory, but also to realize them materially. The book collects ten essays that take up aspects of the cultural and artistic projects that were part of the research project Creating Commons, and brings them into conversation with different fields ranging from cultural, political and feminist theory, philosophy, curatorial studies, and art education.

Aesthetics of the Commons, Sollfrank, Cornelia, Felix Stalder and Shusha Niederberger (eds.), Zurich: Diaphanes (2021)
Softcover, 276 pages
Open Access PDF, 276 pages
https://www.diaphanes.com/titel/aesthetics-of-the-commons-6419

https://creatingcommons.zhdk.ch/aesthetics-of-the-commons/index.html

interview, publication

In the Studio.

London, 9 December 2020

Oliver Goernandt/ fotografenwerk Hamburg © 2019

Interview of Cornelia Sollfrank for Museum of Contemporary Digital Art (MoCDA), London. Maria Cynkier talks with the artist about her creative practice, generative art, the power of decentralization and commons, and resisting patriarchal structures in tech.

https://www.mocda.org/post/cornelia-sollfrank

exhibition

We=Link: Sideways

Chronus Art Center / Shanghai / 2020

Often referred to as the last Avant-garde of the twentieth century, the phenomenon largely dubbed as net art appearing in the early ’90s with the advent of the internet enjoyed an unrestrained flourishing period of prolific experimental, creative and critical engagement with the nascent new-media-fueled economy and its cultural and social ramifications. Chronus Art Center is pleased to announce the presentation of this group exhibition, featuring twenty-two works from the pioneers of net art to millennials. The works on display and online span three decades of net art practice, from arguably the first internet-era artwork of The Thing BBS in 1991 to the most current production continuing to evolve as the exhibition opens.

http://www.chronusartcenter.org/en/cac-%c2%b7-exhibition-announcement-welinksideways/

project

Le miaou our le miaou

Vienna / Guggenheim in Florisdorf / 2020

This interview with a cat is a conversation in which the speaker talks in depth with his counterpart about questions concerning art and politics. Credits: Thanks to the speaker Mark Gergis, to Manfred Miersch for sound editing, God’s Entertainment in Vienna for support and Marcel Broodthaers for inspiration.

https://artwarez.org/projects/miaou/

writing

IN THE SHADOW OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY. Artistic takes on the Digital Commons.

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2020.

The projects discussed in this text all make cultural products available online for free. What is special about them is that they have all been initiated and are run by small groups of artists or individual artists who provide the infrastructure as well as the contents, and they do so without a budget or any sort of official mandate. Due to their radical open access practiced in the art context, they unfold an enormous symbolic value, parallel to their practical value. In this sense, they are manifestations of current political problems rather than solutions, and their relevance lies in the complexity of the questions they are asking. Published in German in: Sich mit Sammlungen anlegen. Gemeinsame Dinge und alternative Archive. Martina Griesser-Stermscheg, Nora Sternfeld und Luisa Ziaja (Hrsg.), De Gruyter, Wien. Seiten: 85-94.

PDF

publication

Autokorso oder Cyberdemo?

WOZ Die Wochenzeitung CH / 1. Mai 2020/

Das Versammlungsrecht ist ausgehebelt, für den 1. Mai sind offiziell nur ein paar Streams geplant, die niemanden stören werden. Sollen wir jetzt zur grossen Onlinedemo aufrufen, oder hat die Linke sowieso gerade andere Probleme? Von David Hunziker

https://www.woz.ch/2017/1-mai/autokorso-oder-cyberdemo

exhibition, publication

OPEN SCORES – How to program the commons.

(exhibition catalogue) The exhibition OPEN SCORES was related to the artistic research project Creating Commons and brought together a series of practices through which artists articulate their specific forms of digital commons. From online archives to digital tools/ infrastructure and educational formats, the projects envision a (post-)digital culture in which notions of collaboration, free access to knowledge, sustainable use of shared resources, and data privacy are central. For the exhibition, each of the projects created a unique score to present their practice.

Participants:
Dušan Barok (monoskop.org), Marcell Mars & Tomislav Medak (memoryoftheworld.org), Sebastian Lütgert & Jan Gerber (0xdb.org), Kenneth Goldsmith (ubu.com), Sean Dockray (AAAAARG), Zeljko
Blace (#QUEERingNETWORKing), Ruth Catlow & Marc Garrett (furtherfield.org), Laurence Rassel (erg.be), Marek Tuszynski (Tactical Tech), Michael Murtaugh, Femke Snelting & Peter Westenberg (Constant), Stefanie Wuschitz (Mz* Baltazar’s Lab), Panayotis Antoniadis (nethood.org), Alessandro Ludovico (neural.it), Eva Weinmayr (andpublishing.org), spideralex, Sakrowski (curatingyoutube.net), Creating Commons.
Curated by Shusha Niederberger, Cornelia Sollfrank and Felix Stalder.

exhibition, project

I AM NOT A LOCAL GIRL

Kampnagel / Hamburg / November 2019

Video installation and participatory online theatre based on true events. DIGIFEM Festival, Kampnagel, Hamburg, 2019. The installation consists of two screens facing each other: On one screen there is a video with dreamlike sequences from various locations in Hamburg, in which the protagonist reflects from a great distance on past political events. Opposite is the projection of a „social wall“ on which flashbacks in the form of images, animations, text pieces, slogans, concepts, names, faces and places flood the social media channels of #purplenoise. The fragments create a narrative that will never be complete and yet brings hidden stories back to light.

https://artwarez.org/projects/localgirl/

interview, research

Forms of Ongoingness, Interview with Femke Snelting and spideralex

House of Electronic Arts Basel (HeK) / Basel / 16 September 2018

In this interview, Femke and Spideralex talk about their shared practice of engaging with what they call feminist technologies. They discuss their understanding of technology as an embodied practice, that bears desired relations as well as terrible connections. How can we live in ungracious times? They explore, how digital infrastructure could work differently with the help of the feminist server, which is both a real server, a need, and at the same time a thinking tool. Within this discussion, they also address questions of autonomy versus ongoingness, the role of language as a tool of investigation, and the cultural dimensions of technology like expectations of servitude behind functionality. Conducted by Cornelia Sollfrank as part of the Creating Commons research project.

https://creatingcommons.zhdk.ch/forms-of-ongoingness/index.html

exhibition

Automat und Mensch. A History of AI and Generative Art

Kate Vass Gallery / Zürich / 29 May – 15 October 2019

anonymous-warhol_flowers@Apr_24_16.26.39_2019

In the last twelve months we have seen a tremendous spike in the interest of “AI art,” ushered in by Christie’s and Sotheby’s both offering works at auction developed with machine learning. Capturing the imaginations of collectors and the general public alike, the new work has some conservative members of the art world scratching their heads and suggesting this will merely be another passing fad. What they are missing is that this rich genre, more broadly referred to as “generative art,” has a history as long and fascinating as computing itself. A history that has largely been overlooked in the recent mania for “AI art” and one that co-curators Georg Bak and Jason Bailey hope to shine a bright light on in their show Automat und Mensch (or Machine and Man).

https://www.katevassgalerie.com/automat-und-mensch-a-history-of-ai-and-generative-art-clone-1671652827762

exhibition

Open Scores. How to program the commons

panke.gallery / Berlin / 21 September – 12 October 2019

The exhibition OPEN SCORES brings together a series of practices through which artists articulate their specific forms of digital commons. From online archives to digital tools/ infrastructure and educational formats, the projects envision a (post-)digital culture in which notions of collaboration, free access to knowledge, sustainable use of shared resources, and data privacy are central. For the exhibition, each of the projects created a unique score to present their practice. Curated by Shusha Niederberger, Cornelia Sollfrank, Felix Stalder.

https://creatingcommons.zhdk.ch/open-scores-how-to-program-the-commons-exhibition-catalogue/index.html

publication

The Beautiful Warriors. Technofeminist Praxis in the Twenty-First Century

The book brings together seven current technofeminist positions from the fields of art and activism. In very different ways, they expand the theories and practices of 1990s cyberfeminism and thus react to new forms of discrimination and exploitation. Gender politics are negotiated with reference to technology, and questions of technology are combined with questions of ecology and economy. The different positions around this new techno-eco-feminism understand their practice as an invitation to take up their social and aesthetic interventions, to join in, to continue, and never give up.

Contributions from Christina Grammatikopoulou, Isabel de Sena, Femke Snelting, Cornelia Sollfrank, Spideralex, Sophie Toupin, hvale vale, Yvonne Volkart. ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1570273650

research

Creating Commons

The research project Creating Commons took place between 2017 and 2019 and was based at Zürich University of the Arts. The research conducted by Felix Stalder, Cornelia Sollfrank and Shusha Niederberger explored the relationship between digital commons and art by exploring 15 durational (post-)digital artistic projects. Funded by SNF.

http://creatingcommons.zhdk.ch/

interview, publication

Ich wäre gern ein richtig guter Troll.

Portrait Künstlerin Medienkünstlerin Cornelia Sollfrank, 2019, in Berlin © Amélie Losier / Agentur Focus

Interview zur Transmediale 2019, veröffentlicht in der taz am 31.1.2019. Cornelia Sollfrank war in den Neunzigern Mitgründerin des Cyberfeminismus. Den Begriff findet sie heute nicht mehr passen. Ein Gespräch über Utopien und die Macht sozialer Medien von Marlene Halser.

https://taz.de/Interview-zur-Transmediale/!5566843/

interview

Caring Instead of Owning: About Intangible Commons

Berlin / April 2019

A conversation between Marisella Ouma (KEN) and Cornelia Sollfrank (D), moderated by Lina Brion. The conversation about different concepts and traditions of a collaborative responsibility for intangible cultural heritage took place on the sidelines of the festival „Find the File“ in April 2019 at the House of World Cultures in Berlin, where both participated in a panel discussion about accessibility and reuse of archival material. German translation in: 100 Years of Copyright, Detlef Diederichsen and Lina Brion (eds.), Matthes & Seitz, Berlin.

PDF

interview

Fürsorge statt Eigentum: Über immaterielle Commons

Berlin / April 2019

Ein Gespräch zwischen Marisella Ouma (KEN) und Cornelia Sollfrank (D), moderiert von Lina Brion. Das Gespräch über verschiedene Konzepte und Traditionen einer gemeinschaftlichen Verantwortung für immaterielles kulturelles Erbe fand am Rande des Festivals „Find the File“ im April 2019 im Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin auf Englisch statt, wo beide an einer Diskussionsrunde über Zugänglichkeit und Wiederverwendung von Archivmaterial teilnahmen. ‎ Deutsche Übersetzung in: 100 Jahre Copyright, ‎Detlef Diederichsen und Lina Brion (Hrsg.), Matthes & Seitz, Berlin.

PDF

publication

Die schönen Kriegerinnen. Technofeministische Praxis im 21. Jahrhundert

Die schönen Kriegerinnen versammelt sieben aktuelle technofeministische Positionen aus Kunst und Aktivismus. Auf höchst unterschiedliche Weise erweitern diese die Denk- und Handlungsansätze des Cyberfeminismus der 1990er Jahre und reagieren damit auf neue Formen von Diskriminierung und Ausbeutung. Geschlechterpolitik wird unter Bezugnahme auf Technologie verhandelt, und Fragen der Technik verbinden sich mit Fragen von Ökologie und Ökonomie. Die unterschiedlichen Positionen um diesen neuen Techno-Öko-Feminismus verstehen ihre Praxis als Einladung, an ihre sozialen und ästhetischen Interventionen anzuknüpfen, dazuzukommen, weiterzumachen, nicht aufzugeben.

Cornelia Sollfrank (Hrsg.), Beiträge von: Christina Grammtikopoulou, hvale vale, Femke Sneltung, Isabel de Sena, spideralex, Sophi Toupin, Yvonne Volkart. transversal texts, 2018. 978-3903046160

interview, research

Experimenting with Institutional Formats. Interview with Laurence Rassel

House of Electronic Arts / Basel / 15 June 2018

In this interview, Laurence Rassel talks about her work with and inside institutions as emerging through continuous communal practice. She discusses the importance of feminist thinking, open-source technology culture, and Institutional Psychotherapy for her work of making an institution a practice of all of those involved, or in her words: instituting. Conducted by Cornelia Sollfrank as part of the Creating Commons research project.

https://creatingcommons.zhdk.ch/experimenting-with-institutional-formats/index.html

interview, publication

Speculative Pink.

Interview by Alessandro Ludovico, published in: neural #61, Speculative Pink, 2018, pp 06-09.

PDF

writing

Post-IP Aesthetics.
Kunst und ihre veränderte Rolle in der ›Knowledge Economy‹

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2018

Kunst und Urheberrecht stehen nicht nur in einem engen Verhältnis, sondern bedingen sich als Systeme gegenseitig. Seit dem 18. Jahrhundert beruhen sie beide auf Vorstellungen von individueller Autorschaft und Originalität, die einerseits Eigentumsverhältnisse begründen und andererseits für die Autonomie des Kunstfeldes konstituierend sind. Ausgehend von der Annahme, dass das Urheberrecht im Rahmen der Knowledge Economy einen wesentlichen Bedeutungszuwachs erfahren hat und nun weniger ein kulturelles denn ein ökonomisches Recht ist, stellt sich die Frage, welche Konsequenzen dies für die Kunst hat. Der Begriff ›Post-IP Aesthetics‹ soll in diesem Text als Vorlage dienen für eine Diskussion über Kunst und ihre Funktion unter den veränderten Produktions- und Rezeptionsbedingungen einer global vernetzen Welt.

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writing

The Surplus of Copying – How shadow libraries and pirate archives contribute to the creation of cultural memory and the commons

in: Franz Thalmair and Michael Kargl (Eds.), originalcopy, DeGruyter, Boston/Berlin.

PDF

exhibition

Top Tens

Onassis Cultural Center / Athens / 16 – 18 March 2018

Top Tens – UbuWeb in Athens presents works from the shadow library Ubu Web. Ten guest curators share and spatialise their collection by tracing their own path through the colossal mass of UbuWeb’s collection. Entering the shadow library through this exhibition changes the way we perceive art history. Part of the show is the video I DON’T KNOW by Cornelia Sollfrank.

interview, publication

Flooding the Museum

An Interview with Cornelia Sollfrank by Michael Connor, rhizome, New York. The interview was conducted on the occasion of rhizome’s publication of the Net.Art Anthology, 9 March 2017.

LINK

exhibition, project

Commons Lab

Montréal / 2017

Commons Lab took place in 2017 at Studio xx in Montréal. It was a space for exploring issues that arise at the intersection of +feminism+digital+art+commons. A strong visual language created the framework within which workshops and screenings took place. In-person and group conversations reflected and tested tools and techniques of collaboration, and produced and shared knowledge and skills. Special attention was given to the collaboration between local and translocal actors.

Project website: https://artwarez.org/projects/commonslab/

https://www.ada-x.org/en/activities/commons-lab-ressources-personnes-processus-cornelia-sollfrank/Commons

exhibition

Netzkunst im Berlin der 90er Jahre

panke.gallery / Berlin / 2 February – 22 February 2017

https://www.panke.gallery/exhibition/transmediale

— 1990s Berlin Net Art — Towards a Critical Evaluation. In February 2017, panke.gallery begins a critical evaluation of 1990s Berlin net art. Numerous early net art activities originated before the invention of graphic browser interfaces and mediating their innovative power has become increasingly difficult. Historical revision of the genre is lacking and many works have either disappeared from the Internet or become useless. This project initiates a series of exhibitions, talks, and lectures, taking first steps towards an evaluation and contextualization of 90s net art works for the long term.

project

Hacking Social Reality

Theater / Basel / 2016

Hacking Social Reality ist ein Spiel über Geschlecht als unüberwindbare und gleichzeitig unhinterfragte Grenze innerhalb der Hacker-Szene. Eine Kooperation zwischen HeK (Haus der elektronischen Künste Basel) und dem Theater Basel innerhalb der von Kevin Rittberger entwickelten Reihe COMMUNITY downlGEMEINSCHAFT IN PROGRESS.

Download PDF documentation

writing

A Pervert’s Guide to Artistic Research

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2016

Der Text gibt eine genaue Einsicht in die Praxis einer Künstlerin, die mit der institutionalisierten Form künstlerischer Forschung bestens vertraut ist. Cornelia Sollfrank stellt darin das selbst erfahrene Modell des practice-based PhD in Großbritannien vor, kritisiert es aber auch.

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writing

Revisiting the Future. Cyberfeminism in the Twenty-First Century.

Cornelia Sollfrank / 2016

In this text I will revisit the various elaborations of cyberfeminism that were practiced in the 1990s. Underlying this trip into the past is a series of questions that might help to better understand the present: what were the impulses behind the techno-feminist upheaval?[1] How did the different concepts vary? Can cyberfeminism play a role in the current situation in which the atmosphere of departure has evaporated, making space for a seemingly all-encompassing dystopia? Are there any techno-feminist approaches that respond to contemporary challenges?

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