Weasel Dance: The Mimetic in the Post-Digital Predicament

we2218975

Event at Goethe-Institut Athen, 26 March 2019

Curated by Most Mechanics Are Crooks (Eva Giannakopoulou, Alexis Fidetzis, Panos Sklavenitis, Kostis Stafylakis)

The weasel dance is a hypnotizing choreography that paralyzes the weasel’s prey. This is, perhaps, a successful depiction of the post-digital predicament: we remain dazzled by the plurality of our on-line identities, digital extensions, “memetic” truisms and mimetic selves while imagining the perpetuation of self-mastery. We, thereby, perform the post-digital trauma: the scars our online masks leave on our faces.

This event brings together a variety of artists working with the schizophrenic economy of the internet and digital mediation. In the decade of “Greek crisis,” these artists witnessed the implosion of social and political sphere, the rise of social media and the sudden gamification of life after Reality TV. They experimented with the vast options of identity molding via the use of avatars, alter egos, masquerade, semblance, mimicry, parafiction and the practice of crafty underhanded ingenuity. Yet, rather than feeding a fantasy of heroic subversiveness, they acknowledge the impact of avatarization and thematize the discomforting effects of their mended self-image.

The Weasel Dance event transforms Goethe-Institut Athen into a lair of alluring post-digital monstrosities. It is the inaugural curatorial project of Most Mechanics Are Crooks, a newly formed artistic and curatorial band that aims to reclaim insincerity as a tool of progressive discourse, challenging the new belief in the existence of ontological truths, unconditional empathy, disarming sincerity and artistic humanism.

Participants:
Sam Albatros, ASFA Lab 12/Poka-Yio, Ayşenur Babuna, Flower Girls (Eleftheria Kotzaki, Christina Spanou, Dimitra Stamatopoulou), Hypercomf, It’s me! (performed by Thanos Ghikas, Helen Karakou, Markella Ksilogiannopoulou), Klassenfahrt (Nikos Arvanitis, Anamarija Batista, Alexios Dallas, Jakob Dietrich, Christine Eder, Kyriaki Goni, Dejan Kaludjerović, Vana Kostayola, Kai Maier-Rothe, Panos Sklavenitis, Kostis Stafylakis, Axel Stockburger), Dimitra Kondylatou, Apostolos Lampropoulos, Most Mechanics Are Crooks (Eva Giannakopoulou, Alexis Fidetzis, Panos Sklavenitis, Kostis Stafylakis), Eva Papamargariti, Lykourgos Porfyris, Theo Triantafyllidis, Antigoni Tsagkaropoulou, Michailangelos Vlassis-Ziakas, Vassilis Vlastaras & Maria Glyka.

we228110
we7765109
we2219887
we221907763
we221877
we221987552
we3319876
we554197
we998641
we9986771
we22187740
we009176
we997995
we221987
we99818
we77610552
we009182
we009712
we227556
we998183
we2210985
we88677451
we887921
we9981744
we221987562
we88673100
mec99900066
mec8888897888843
mec2222292333
mec444444499999990
mec9908888976
mec000000444444433
mec1111889332
mec33303333319
mec11110987