Cold Sleep
Right now, approximately 400 human bodies are frozen at -196 degrees Celsius in America and Russia. They are dead – legally speaking. The hope is to one day defrost and resuscitate them. The procedure is controversial. Nonetheless, cryopreservation, i.e. preserving people at extreme temperatures below zero, is an area marked by growth. The condition is sometimes referred to as ‘cold sleep’, which is also the title of Stine Deja’s first solo show in Denmark at Tranen. The exhibition is an installation of kinetic sculpture and animation. Cryopreserved bodies in thermal, yellow suits are suspended in big, circular aluminium structures revolving around their own axis on small islands in a desert landscape. In the sand lie craters where artificially inseminated cells divide. A barren desert landscape is usually seen as lifeless and abstract. In Deja’s version it becomes a place for being before or after human life, or, as the artist has it, “a population in another dimension.”

‘Sisters with Transistors’, a documentary about the pioneers of electronic music

This November, a new documentary dedicated to the pioneers of electronic music will see the light under the name ‘Sisters with Transistors’. The feature centers around the work of figures such as Suzanne Ciani, Delia Derbyshire, Laurie Spiegel, and Clara Rockmore.
The feature aims to reveal a unique struggle for emancipation and restore the central role of women in the history of music and society in general.
‘We, women, were especially attracted to electronic music when the possibility of a woman composing was itself controversial. Electronics allow us to make music that others can listen to without having to be taken seriously by the male-dominated establishment’, says the director of the piece.

From Apple to Anomaly
Artist Trevor Paglen’s new Curve commission takes as its starting point the way in which AI networks are taught how to ‘see’ and ‘perceive’ the world by taking a closer look at image datasets. Paglen has incorporated approximately 30,000 individually printed photographs, largely drawn from ImageNet, the most widely shared, publicly available dataset. This dataset is archived and pre-selected in categories by humans, and widely used for training AI networks. In some cases, the connotations of categories are uncontroversial, others, for example ‘bad person’ or ‘debtors’, are not. These categories, when used in AI, suggest a world in which machines will be able to elicit forms of judgement against humankind.

Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020)
R.I.P
Wrapped Reichstag/Verhüllter Reichstag
Their work was typically large, visually impressive and controversial, often taking years and sometimes decades of careful preparation — including technical solutions, political negotiation, permitting and environmental approval, hearings and public persuasion. The pair refused grants, scholarships, donations or public money, instead financing the work via the sale of their own artwork.

سيدي العربي الشرقاوي
西迪·拉比·切考维
СИДИ ЛАРБИ ШЕРКАУИ
Faun
Faun started from a desire to create a performance around dancer James O’Hara. As part of the centenary celebrations of the Ballets Russes, Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London also invited Cherkaoui to work on or draw inspiration from any of the pieces of the repertoire of the legendary company. Cherkaoui chose L’après midi d’un faune, Nijinski’s choreography inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem and danced on Claude Debussy’s impressionistic music. Nijinski’s version based itself on Greek representations on vases, it was very two dimensional, very classical yet also daring, sexual and quite controversial in it’s time.

Sarah Maple’s artwork is unfailingly bold and brave, not for the coy or faint of heart. These unflinching, occasionally even controversial, investigations into what it is to be a woman and a Muslim in 21st century Britain are made joyful by her own very personal brand of boisterous, tongue-in-cheek humour. more…

life of brian
The film’s themes of religious satire were controversial at the time of its release, drawing accusations of blasphemy and protests from some religious groups. Thirty-nine local authorities in the United Kingdom either imposed an outright ban, or imposed an X (18 years) certificate.[6] Some countries, including Ireland and Norway, banned its showing, and a few of these bans lasted decades. The filmmakers used the notoriety to promote the film, with posters in Sweden reading, “So funny, it was banned in Norway!”

واين ماكغريغور
韦恩·麦格雷戈
웨인 맥그리거
ויין מקגרגור
ウェイン·マクレガー
Уэйн МакГрегор
rAndom International
FAR
Wayne McGregor’s anatomy-defying choreography and ground-breaking approach across dance, science, film, music, visual art and technology has fuelled a string of truly unique works. FAR is no exception. Inspired by the controversial Age of Enlightenment, FAR mines an era that first placed ‘a body in question’. Ten incredible dancers confront the distortions, sensuality and feeling of the 18th Century‘s searing contemporary sensibility to a haunting score by the critically-acclaimed composer Ben Frost. Staged in a mesmerizing environment of shadow and light (rAndom International, Lucy Carter), object and film (Moritz Junge, Ravi Deepres), FAR binds cutting edge design with choreography made from a radical cognitive research process.

Стивен Майзель
ستيفن ميزل
史蒂芬迈泽尔
스티븐 마이젤
סטיבן מייזל
スティーヴン・マイゼル
a tribute to Alexander McQueen
Meisel is now one of the pre-eminent photographers working in fashion. His commercial clients include Versace, Valentino, Louis Vuitton , Calvin Klein and many more. Editorially, Meisel’s fierce defense of his aesthetics’ independence has led to him creating some of fashion’s best and most controversial fashion stories[…]

DEMOCRACY
Compagnie LEDA

“I’ve wanted to work on the drum quartet “Dark Full Ride” by Julia Wolfe for a long time. There is something quite revolutionary in the energy of this piece. Julia Wolfe uses the instrumentation of processions, meetings and political demonstrations. I work on democracy, not democracy reduced its political framework definition […] but ‘insurgent’ democracy that strives for the dissolution of certainty and the claim to equality as civil resistance. Work is nourished by ideas like the test of determination or the idea of a problematizing community, which I call the ‘all-one.’ Also, how does an individual decision open the possibility to collective action? What do we strive for, or against? Who do we give our consent to? Must we disobey democracy? How do we build a controversialist community? Does resistance to power define the democratic experience? What is a savage democracy? … ” Maud Le Pladec

kiss garbage

“We create a new and honest, heroic and monumental form of art.”
Voina means war in Russian. Voina is a collective of about twenty artists/activists who challenge the Russian establishment with their radical actions in the public space. According to Voina’s principles, the battleground of the art collective are not contemporary art galleries (“conformist art-junk”). The war takes place in the street, among dirt and ice, in police stations, in restaurants, museums, and courts.Owing to their direct method of intervention against the symbols of power and repression, they are regarded as one of the most disturbing and controversial elements of the arts scene. One of Voina members is currently waiting for trial, another member was arrested illegally during the recent demonstrations to protest against fraud in the Russian election (but he managed to escape from the police station), and yet another one had to flee from the country.

big pink bunny
Apparently, a controversial Viennese art group, Gelitin, has erected a giant pink rabbit on the side of an Italian mountainside where they plan for it to stay until 2025. According to Gelitin group member Wolfgang Gantner the bunny was “knitted by dozens of grannies out of pink wool” and is “supposed to make you feel small, like a daisy.” The artists added that they “want people to scale the rabbit’s sides and fall asleep on its stomach”. Apparently the intent of the project was to make climbers smile and provide them somewhere to lay back and relax. Gelatin members insist that the bunny is not just for walking around and that they are expecting hikers to climb its 20 foot sides and relax on its belly. Livestock are apparently urged to not eat the bunny as it is constructed out of straw-stuffed fabric.