The Future of Demonstration

An art series by
Sylvia Eckermann and Gerald Nestler


The Future of Demonstration is an art series that explores the aesthetic, technological, pedagogical, and political potentials offered by the term demonstration. Artists, activists, architects, philosophers, scientists and contributors from other fields jointly explore new forms, intensities and consequences of collective practice and activate sensing and sense-making as modes of resolution. With this postdisciplinary approach we aim to reimagine, weave, share and demonstrate narratives, techniques and affiliations of resistance.

To this end, we work with a novel techno-ecological format that speculatively reshapes the conception and aesthetics of virtual reality. We intertwine virtual and physical space and replace VR avatar representation with point cloud live-streaming. Thus, the art project is like a membrane through which human and non-human beings can interact and perform with each other from wherever they are.





Season 4 / 2024

Like a Ray in Search of its Mirror



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«Like a Ray in Search of its Mirror», evokes the emergence of a new understanding of interconnectedness. What we call artist-as-collective is a more-than-human association to explore the resourceful potency of our myriad ecological, social, cultural, and technological relationships.
Immersed in planetary matter a new world is unfolding. Can you already feel the ecstatic sensation of alien copresence?
 
Performance   April 19 2024, 18:00
Exhibition   April 20–28, 2024
Venue   Forum Frohner
Krems, Austria
donaufestival




Season 3 / 2023

Planetary Skins



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«Planetary Skins», the third season of The Future of Demonstration, addressed the materiality of the real and the digital. Responding to interconnected phenomena – evoked by layers of technological advancements as well as social and ecological crises across the globe – tha art project was a laboratory for new forms of ecologically, socially, and artistically engaged collective practice.
 
Performance   May 27 2023, 19:00
Exhibition   May 28–June 3, 2023
Venue   Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman
Innsbruck, Austria
HEART OF NOISE 2023




The first two seasons of The Future of Demonstration, conceived by Eckermann and Nestler in collaboration with Maximilian Thoman, were realised as the media art festival of the City of Vienna in 2017 and 2018. Based on the leitmotifs VERMÖGEN and PASSION, its eight episodes engaged with today's massive transformations in the ecological, technopolitical, economic and cultural spheres.


Season 2 / 2018

PASSION

PASSION   October 20–25, 2018
Venue   Atelier Augarten
Vienna, Austria

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Episode 1

Supra-Citizenship

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Episode 2

What Is to Be Done?

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Episode 3

Making the Black Box Speak

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Season 1 / 2017

VERMÖGEN

VERMÖGEN   October 31–Nobvember 11, 2018
Venue   REAKTOR
Vienna, Austria

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Episode 1

GROUND TRUTH:
The al-Araqib Museum of Struggle

Forensic Architecture

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Episode 2

ALIEN INTROSPECTION

Xenofeminism, Robotics and Machinic Promiscuity

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Episode 3

NAURUTICA

Synthetic Future Islands
and the Tragedy of Outer Space


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Episode 4

LIVERATION. PROMETHEUS DELIVERED

An Environment of Living Cells, Voices, Soundscapes, Text, Bodies and Distillation Processes giving birth to a Conceptual Narration on Biotechnological Divination

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Episode 5

PROOF-OF-BURN

Burning Money. Burning Value. Burning Trust

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