Simon Denny – Theme parks for extraction

Lecture by the artist Simon Denny, followed by a conversation with the critic Julia Gwendolyn Schneider

Tue, 3 September 2019, 7 p.m.

MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Stubenring 5, 1010 Vienna

In his lecture Theme parks for extraction in the context of the VIENNA BIENNALE FOR CHANGE 2019, New Zealand born artist Simon Denny will discuss his recent project Mine currently on view at the Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania, Australia. He reflects on contemporary notions of “extraction”—extraction of data harvested through increasingly omnipresent platforms, extraction of labor from people and other beings in different formations of conscious and unconscious “work” and the extraction of resources from the earth and its ecosystems as they are organized to support human activity.

The event is held in English.

Admission (incl. admission to the museum): € 5

Lecture and conversation in context of the MAK FUTURE LAB, financially supported by the EU program Interreg V-A Slovakia–Austria (Project “Design & Innovation”).

SIMON DENNY is an artist working with installation, sculpture, print, and video. His research-based art projects explore the interaction and politics of tech business culture, both in governmental and commercial infrastructures. He has made several projects unpacking the culture around crypto currencies, including Blockchain Future States at the 2016 Berlin Biennale. He studied at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and at the Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main. Solo exhibitions of his work have appeared in institutions worldwide, among them the Museum of Old and New Art, Berriedale, Tasmania where his show Mine is on view until April 2020. In 2015, Denny represented New Zealand at the 56th Venice Biennale. He is a Professor for Time Based Media at the HFBK in Hamburg. He lives and works in Berlin.

JULIA GWENDOLYN SCHNEIDER is an art critic, translator, and editor. She studied aesthetics, cultural studies and American studies in Berlin and London. Her texts have appeared in Camera Austria International, springerin, die tageszeitung, Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, and LEAP. She is currently working on art that sheds light on the social and political implications of machine learning and artificial intelligence. She lives and works in Berlin.