Korhan Erel will spend two weeks in Hong Kong for the exhibition “Hacktivate Yourself”, where they will show a sound installation titled “we’re all alike” and perform an audiovisual show with visual artist Vvzela Kook on March 30th. The exhibition opens at 1a space on March 23rd with performances by participating artists and will continue until May 19th.
1a space proudly presents Hactivate Yourself, a contemporary art exhibition and public project curated by Tuçe Erel, the 1a space’s Call for Curator/Artist in Residence 2019 recipient. Hactivate Yourself features Istanbul-based contemporary artists AslieMk, Berlin-based Korhan Erel and Göksu Kunak a.k.a. Gucci Chunk, Bochum-based artist Julia Nitschke, and Hong Kong-based artist Vvzela Kook. Hactivate Yourself is the selected project of 1a Space “Call for Curator/Artist in Residence 2019”.
“Hactivate Yourself !” is a project that concept is driven by transhumanism and posthumanism themes. The exhibition will explore artistic positions about hacking culture, biohacking, biopolitics, critique of daily usage of internet through performance, performative installations, videos, sound and site specific installations.
The exhibition will ask these questions: How can we hack our ideas? How can we look outside the box? It is important to understand that hacking in the smaller scale could change a lot in our daily life. How can we hack the system for the sake of better life? The popular culture and so many sponsored videos in the social media are promoting about healthy, quality, and active life. How about hactivating our lives!
The exhibition ‘Hactivate Yourself ’ will bring together AslieMk, Korhan Erel, Göksu Kunak a.k.a. Gucci Chunk, Vvzela Kook and Julia Nitschke during the residency period at 1a space.
Hactivate Yourself
Opening Reception: 23 March 2019, 3pm
15:30 AslieMk – “Post”, durational performance
18:00 Göksu Kunak a.k.a. Gucci Chunk – “Döner Blackout”, lecture performance
19:00 Julia Nitschke – “PEOPLE SUCK BUT IT’S OK BECAUSE CATZ – why it is pretty much obvious to live riot not diet”, lecture performance
Exhibition Period: 23 March 2019 – 19 May 2019
Time: Tuesday to Sundays 11 am – 7 pm (closed on Mondays)
Venue: 1a space
Unit 14, Cattle Depot Artist Village, 63 Ma Tau Kok Road,To Kwa Wan, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Enquiry: +852 25290087/ info@oneaspace.org.hk
Facebook:1a space
Instagram: 1a_space
Public program
Public program of ‘Hactivate Yourself’ exhibition will have curatorial tour, a discussion session with invited academics from Hong Kong. The public program will finish with free improvisation audio-visual performance of Vvzela Kook and Korhan Erel, who are separately presenting their works in the exhibition.
Online Registration: https://goo.gl/forms/4OhOUM0nsLAzdSRo1
1. Curatorial Guided Tour
Mar. 28, 11am to 12pm & 5pm to 6 pm.
Mar. 29, 11am to 12pm & 5pm to 6 pm.
Mar. 30, 4pm to 4.45pm
2. Discussion
Mar. 30, 5pm to 6.30pm
Theme: Discussion on Biopolitics and Art: Hacking the Body
Speakers (in no particular order):
Göksu Kunak (Performance Artist, Researcher)
Julia Nitschke (Performance Artist, Researcher)
Dr. Denise Tse-Shang Tang (Assistant Professor, Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University)
Dr. Sonia Wong (Founder of Reel Women Hong Kong and Part-time Lecturer at the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong)
3. Audio-visual Performance
Mar. 30, 7pm to 7.30pm
Performance Artists: Vvzela Kook & Korhan Erel
About Call for Curator/Artist in Residence 2019
With the aim of encouraging curatorial research in tandem with exhibition planning, the program provides one deserving curatorial talent or curatorial team/ artist or artist group a platform and necessary resources to realize an innovative and experimental project to fill the gap between larger public institutions and commercial ventures. The aim of this curatorial residency program is to promote arts in Hong Kong with international collaborations and to enhance international curatorial research in Hong Kong.
Curator and Participating Artists
Curator:
Tuçe Erel
Tuçe Erel (1981, Ankara) is a curator, art writer and art professional, based in Berlin. She studied Sociology at METU(2005, Ankara), and Arts Theory and Critic (MA program) at Anatolian University (2009, Eskişehir). She did her second MA in Art Arts Policy and Management (with curating pathway) at Birkbeck College (2015, London).
She worked for an art magazine as content editor, event manager and archivist, and gallery assistant in Istanbul from 2011 through 2013. Since September 2013, she has been working as a freelance art professional. She worked for artist’s book project, supported artists’ public relations, and contributed to art magazines in Turkey. Since 2015, she has been organizing events, performances, and exhibitions. In 2017 February she co-curated “Now You are Here” with Seval Sener at Arte Sanat (Ankara)and curated “Fabric/ate” at Schneidertempel (Istanbul).
She was at the curatorial team of Quiet Cue and since January 2017, she is a member of > top e.V. Her curatorial interests are archiving practices, urban studies, ecology, Anthropocene, post-humanism and post-digital theories. Currently she is hosting Posthumanism Reading Group at Top once a month and hosting various exhibitions and events at the space.
Participating Artists (in no particular order)
AslieMk (performance duo – Aslı Dinç & MK Yurttaş)
AslieMk is the performance duo project of Aslı Dinç and Mustafa Kemal Yurttaş, based in Istanbul, Turkey.
They explore the nature of being duo around the keywords like posthuman, psychogeography, cosmic, ghostly-becoming and schizo-creative. Their performances include experiences in-between performative intervention and performative sculpture using new media, video, photography, audio installations. Since 2012, AslieMk continued their performances in public spaces, abandoned buildings, art festivals, and non-profit organizations. Since 2016, AslieMk is represented by international performance art platform Performistanbul.
http://performistanbul.org/index.php/asliemk/
Korhan Erel
Korhan Erel is a electronic musician, improviser, sound designer based in Berlin. They play instruments they design on a computer by employing various controllers. They also use analog and digital electronics. Korhan composes and designs sounds for dance, theater, installations and film. Korhan’s collaboration with Sydney-based video artist Fabian Astore “The Threshold” has won the Blake Prize in Australia in 2012. They are a founding member of Islak Köpek, Turkey’s pioneer free improvisation group, which is regarded as the band that started the free improvisation scene in Turkey.
Korhan’s computer performance system is called Omnibus. The instruments within Omnibus are a culmination of Korhan’s musical past and aesthetic choices. Omnibus instruments use concrete sounds (samples, field recordings), morphed and processed in realtime. The instruments are played interactively using controllers and an iPad, used both as a controller and an instrument. No matter what technology they use, Korhan always stays focused on the outcome and musicality rather than processes.
They perform regularly in Europe and in the Middle East as a solo artist as well as with their projects in Germany, Turkey and Switzerland. They performed in Soundtrips NRW, Moers Festival, Labor Sonor, Klangzeit Festival, Borusan Music House Istanbul and many more fantastic venues and festivals.
Vvzela Kook
(B. 1990, Lives and works in Hong Kong)
Vvzela Kook is a new media artist who mainly works in audiovisual mediums, including performance, theatre, generative video and drawing. Her audiovisual works combine media with performance; they explore the possibility of coexistence between contemporary performance types, like dance or choreography, and computer-generated new media.
Kook’s video works combine technology with her artistic practice to reproduce and convert urban cityscapes into an integrated virtual experience, guiding the audience on a cybernetic journey. The condensed textures in her works connect with multiple sensual levels in our perception and reintroduce the unexplored potential of video as a medium.
Kook has participated and shown her works in PuSh Performing Art Festival in Vancouver(2017), Mill6 Foundation (2017), Microwave International Media Festival in Hong Kong (2016), K11 Shanghai (2016), Hong Kong Arts Festival (2015), Sound Art China Exhibition (2013), Frischzelle Festival and Dusseldorf Festival (2012), and “89+”program (2012) co-curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Simon Castets.
Göksu Kunak a.k.a. Gucci Chunk
(performance artist)
Göksu Kunak (Ankara, 1985) a.k.a Gucci Chunk is a writer based in Berlin. Ze performed zir texts and lectures at Batard Brussels 2016 (invited by Tom Engels), Stadtsprachen Festival 2016, Poesie Festival 2017, Fuchsbau Festival 2017, Broken Dimanche Press reading series at Tropez Berlin curated by John Holten, Pioneer Works NYC curated by Belladonna* Collaborative at Centre d’Art Contemporain Geneve as one of the CAMPers invited by Andrea Bellini and Julian Weber. Göksu’s chapbook #225 I thought this would is published by Belladonna* Collaborative NYC. Zir texts have appeared on the official page of The Absence of Paths, the Official Tunisian Pavillion of the 57th Venice Biennial and on the blog The History of Painting Revisited in collaboration with Deutsche Bank Kunsthalle for the Fahrelnissa Zeid Retrospective. Invited by Meg Stuart and Maria F. Scaroni, as a part of City Lights — a continuous gathering, ze had the pleasure to perform with amazing female artists of Berlin at the old and renowned theater Hebbel am Ufer.
Julia Nitschke
Julia Nitschhke (1988, GER) is a performance artist, researcher, theater scholar, and foley artist from Bochum where she studied Scenic Research and theaterstudies. Nitschke researches on (Internet) phenomena of the current cat image culture and thus poses urgent questions about our world and life with a focus on dealing and researching about pop feminism, Webfeminism, cultural appropriation, heteronormativity, gender sensibility, representation and self-representation.
2013 she founded with Knut Schultz their agency for applied Performance Art which moves between clear service, art and communication, techniques of self-help, empowerment and the intimate event. Together they work as the performative oracle collective Meine Wunschdomain. *Meine Wunschdomain* develops in their oracle performances visions for a utopian and solidary future, most recently in the sophiensæle in Berlin.
In addition, she is interested in political-performative think formats for everyone* which are concepted together with Caroline Kapp and Eva Busch. Their most recent work was shown at the Kammerspiele in Munich.
Together with Eva Busch she shares a teaching assignment at the Institute for Art and Art Theory since 2018 at the University of Cologne about “Queering Arts Education and Media Culture.
In Bochum she also runs the atelier automatique, which is a sharing workplace for artists and off space for the local art scene, with a queer feminist focus. Within this space Nitschke curates exhibitions and organizes programmes.
http://www.meinewunschdomain.com
http://www.atelierautomatique.de
http://kunst.uni-koeln.de/projekte/semesterthema/future-memories-2018-19/
Korhan Erel 