Kunstraum Lakeside (Lakeside Science & Technology Park, 9020 Klagenfurt, Austria)
Opening, September 27, 2018, 7 pm
Exhibition, September 28 – November 2, 2018
“Would you rather push the line or cross the line?”
Systems, programmed environments, and the phenomenon of automation as driving forces behind society form the springboards for Josephine Kaeppelin’s artistic practice. She researches the technological, social, and visual aspects of work contexts to explore what role humans assume in the interaction between machines, ordering principles, and control mechanisms. What strategies do we use to adapt ourselves to systems, and what effect do these systems have on us? What gestures have we assimilated for dealing with automated processes, and how do these processes then in turn determine our behavior?
Working at the crossroads between analytical research and visual art, and with a focus on drawing, printed materials, and participative displays the artist describes herself as an “Intellectual and Graphic Service Provider.” By toying with default settings, predefined formats and styles, and the (im-)perfections of commercially available office software to generate her image material, Kaeppelin undermines not only the intended purpose of these machine programs but at the same time the art system as well. The formal language of the working world and the rigor of office aesthetics are reflected in the construction of Kaeppelin’s participatory displays. Through appropriation, mimicry, and over-affirmation, she subverts the neoliberal practices of the self and exploits them for her own creations—without ever losing sight of the human face behind the machine.
Joséphine Kaeppelin (b. 1985 in France) lives and works in Brussels.
www.josephinekaeppelin.com
