POSTSENSORIUM

RIXC Art Science Festival 2021

Knowbotiq

1 September 2021

knowbotiq (Yvonne Wilhelm, Christian Huebler)
Thulhu, Thu, Thu, before the sun harms you
2020, Installation, Video

The artist duo knowbotiq were invited in 2019/20 by the Timespan Heritage and Art Center in the Scottish Highlands to develop a project on the ecologies of the peat bogs. The resulting project, „Thulu thu thu, before the sun harms you“, traced and unfolded past, present and future entanglements and narratives of materialities in the peat land, its inscribed asymmetric violence, and the impacts of racialized capitalism. The artistic unfolding of the land developed performative acts of „collective sensing” – groups of people connected through a multitudinous object of braided plant fibers (Thulhu) to apprehend the vibrations of the peatlands. Their explorations were accompanied by „sonic incantation” – knowbotiq invited other artists for producing a fractured series of sounds, songs and readings. The incantations by Lamin Fofana, Ayesha Hameed and Elvin Brandhi, Fundación Mareia, Margarida Mendes, Pedro Neves Marquez and Raw Forest, Odete, Romy Rüegger were articulated from various planetary positions, invoking the inhumane politics of the Anthropocene.

The artist duo experiments with forms and medialities of knowledge, political representations, and epistemic disobedience. In various installations, projects on art, public and performative settings, knowbotiq explore molecular, psychotropic and derivative aesthetics. knowbotiq has participated in the Venice Biennale, Moscow Biennale, Seoul Biennale, Hongkong Shenzen Biennale, Biennale Rotterdam, and exhibited in New Museum New York, Witte de With Rotterdam, MOCA Taipeh, Skuc Gallery Ljubljana, Hamburger Kunstverein, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter Oslo a.o. and has a professorship at the University of the Arts Zurich.

knowbotiq. Thulhu, Thu, Thu, before the sun harms you, 2020. The PostSensorium exhibition, The National Library of Latvia, 2021. Photo: Kristīne Madjare

Tulu, Tu, Tu, pirms saule tevi ievaino
knowbotiq (Ivonna Vilhelma, Kristiāns Hūblers)
2020, instalācija, video


Timespan mantojuma un mākslas centrs Skotijas augstienē 2019. un 2020. gadā ielūdza mākslinieku duo knowbotiq izveidot projektu par kūdras purvu ekoloģiju. Rezultātā tapa mākslas darbs Tulu, Tu, Tu, pirms saule tevi ievaino, kas izsekoja un atritināja pagātnes, tagadnes un nākotnes pinekļus un materialitātes naratīvas kūdras purvā, to iegravēto asimetrisko nežēlību un racionalizētā kapitālisma ietekmi. Mākslinieciskā zemes atraisīšana izveidoja “kolektīvās uztveres” performances – cilvēku grupas, kuras savienoja no augu šķiedrām sapīts daudzpusīgs objekts (Tulu), ar mērķi sajust kūdras purvu vibrācijas. Viņu pieredzi papildināja skaļi skaitīti vārdojumi – knowbotiq ielūdza arī citus māksliniekus, kuri radīja saraustītu skaņu, dziesmu un lasījumu sēriju. Vārdojumus skaitīja Lamina Fofana, Aješa Hamīda un Elvins Brandi, Fundación Mareia, Margarita Mendes, Pedro Neves Markess un Raw Forest, Odete, Romijs Rūgers. Vārdojumu veidošanā tika ņemti vērā vairāki planetārie novietojumi, atsaucoties uz nehumāno, antropocentrisko politiku.

knowbotiq. Thulhu, Thu, Thu, before the sun harms you, 2020. The opening of the PostSensorium exhibition, The National Library of Latvia, 2021. Photo: Kristīne Madjare
knowbotiq. Thulhu, Thu, Thu, before the sun harms you: responding, peatbogs in the Scottish Highlands, 2020.
knowbotiq. Thulhu, Thu, Thu, before the sun harms you: braiding, peatbogs in the Scottish Highlands, 2020.
knowbotiq. Thulhu, Thu, Thu, before the sun harms you: sensing, peatbogs in the Scottish Highlands, 2020.