Katrin Mayer / Netta Weiser

Katrin Mayer: #c0da comptoir #fanny carolsruh
Katrin Mayer (b. 1974, Oberstdorf, Germany) presents her current art and research project c0da at the Badischer Kunstverein, which investigates a female history of computer programming and writing and situates it in a complex relationship to the Fächerstadt (“fan shaped city”) of Karlsruhe as a technology centre. In her site-specific practice, Mayer proposes feminist correctives to existing historiographies; for example, the technology of programming was a female activity, especially in its early days, yet the achievements of women are hardly ever mentioned.

c0da interweaves the stories of pioneering programmers such as Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, or Betty Snyder Holberton from ENIAC 6 with a herstory of writing. With l’écriture féminine and the figure of the zerological subject as points of departure, c0da interrogates these writing traditions in relation to artificial intelligence and new writing programs such as Chat GPT. Artists, theoreticians, curators and writers from Mayer’s interdisciplinary network have been invited to collaboratively reflect on the researches and to submit their own contributions on c0da.org—an ongoing platform developed with Anna Cairns and published in 2022.

At the Kunstverein, c0da will be transferred to an exhibition space for the first time and supplemented by an additional narrative: Mayer creates a speculative re-reading of the creation myth of the “fan shaped” city Karlsruhe, according to which Margrave Karl Wilhelm dreamt of a fan and resolved to orient the layout of his palace and city to this radial motif. Mayer takes the German word Fächer (fan in English) quite literally: in British English, the term “fanny” is a slang expression for vulva. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the fan was a telegraphic tool, part of the basic equipment of bodies that were coded as feminine, and was scenarized in literature and art as an instrument of emancipatory and subversive communication.

Curated by Anja Casser.
Curatorial assistance: Yvonne Fomferra

c0da contributors: Anna Cairns, Ann-Kathrin Eickhoff, Sophia Eisenhut, Rike Frank, Jackie Grassmann, Sarah Lehnerer, Hanne Loreck, Jasmina Metwaly, Karolin Meunier, Eva Meyer, Luzie Meyer, 0rphan Drift & Ido Radon, Sadie Plant, Romy Nína Rüegger, Bea Schlingelhoff, Eske Schlüters, Andrea Scrima, Jana Seehusen, Stanton Taylor, Rebekka Wilkens

Netta Weiser: Radio-Choreography: Acts of Transmission
Netta Weiser (b. 1991, Hod-Hasharon, Israel) works at the intersection of choreography, experimental radio, sound art and performance. The Badischer Kunstverein presents the artist’s first solo exhibition in Germany. In her long-term artistic research Radio-Choreography she explores the transformation of dance into sound, the relations between live broadcasting and muted histories, as well as acts of listening as modes of being together.

In the exhibition Radio-Choreography: Acts of Transmission Weiser invites the audience to listen to diasporic body memories and transgenerational embodied knowledge. The presentation centres around a three-part sound installation interweaving sounds of Jewish-Moroccan dance, blessings for fertility in Judeo-Arabic and choreographic poetry. This multi-channel sound experience is the result of diverse modes of collaboration with choreographer Shira Eviatar, researcher and vocalist Vanessa Paloma Elbaz and choreographer, performer, and writer Nora Amin.

During the timeframe of the show the installation is activated with a series of performative interventions, live radio broadcasts, workshops and listening acts. The entire Atrium of the Kunstverein is transformed into a performative sound space and a living archive. The audience is invited to experience intimate encounters with subversive forms of knowledge, allowing them to reverberate through their bodies, and carry them forward into the future. The exhibition claims new spaces of resonance for bygone dance and healing practices, emitting waves of collaborative survival, and re-writing a history of female Jewish-Muslim solidarities.

Initiated by Mira Hirtz.
Curated by Anja Casser.
Curatorial assistance: Yvonne Fomferra

In collaboration with Nora Amin, Vanessa Paloma Elbaz, Shira Eviatar, Annett Hardegen, Giovanni Verga.

Program
Friday, June 21, 2024, 7:30pm
#c0da comptoir
Conversation with Rike Frank and Katrin Mayer

Saturday, June 22, 2024
5–7pm
Radio-Choreography
Artist talk with Netta Weiser and Mira Hirtz 
at Badischer Kunstverein, broadcasted live via Querfunk Freies Radio Karlsruhe
7:30pm
#c0da comptoir
Performative lectures
Jackie Grassmann and Sarah Lehnerer, Luzie Meyer

Wednesday, July 3, 2024 – Monday, July 8, 2024
Radio-Choreography
A week of performative activations including performances, talks, film screening, workshop, radio broadcasts with and by Vanessa Paloma Elbaz, Shira Eviatar, Myriam Van Imschoot, Anissa Rouas, Netta Weiser, HfG Karlsruhe

Friday, July 19, 2024, 8pm
#c0da comptoir
Zoom Conversation
0rphan Drift and Ido Radon, with Stanton Taylor

Saturday, July 20, 2024, 6:30pm
#c0da comptoir
Lectures
Rebekka Wilkens, Hanne Loreck, Karolin Meunier, Eske Schlüters

For further information on the program please visit badischer-kunstverein.de.