GLITCH: ONTOLOGICAL EXHAUSTIONS & SYSTEM FAILURES
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GLITCH: ONTOLOGICAL EXHAUSTIONS & SYSTEM FAILURES
With GLITCH: ONTOLOGICAL EXHAUSTIONS & SYSTEM FAILURES, Spazju Kreattiv becomes an amplifier for reflections on digitality & resistance, history & remembrance: aesthetic “disruptions” (glitches) challenge the audience to reflect on their technology-dependent society.
East German resistance is a model that shows how hegemonic narratives can be rewritten. Glitch Art—a powerful tool to deconstruct the technocratic, dictatorial, and repressive dimensions of neoliberal, communist, or capitalist systems—pushes us to the boundaries of our world, governed by surveillance, algorithmic dependence, and systemic exhaustion.
How old is the glitch? It has always existed. The Tractatus de Penitentia (1285) by Johannes Galensis introduces a subversive demon named Titivillus, the “patron demon of scribes,” who collected omitted, mumbled, and mispronounced words—especially those clerics who were said to have “stolen from God” during their morning prayers—which he preserved for their indictment at the end of days.
Creative team:
Curator: Verena Voigt
Satellite events:
Ines Geipel
The German Double Helix of Memory
March 19, 7 pm
Reading and discussion with Ines Geipel on Beautiful New Sky (2022 / Engl. translation 2024), presented as part of the exhibition Glitch: Ontological Exhaustion & System Failures.
The history of Germany’s 20th century is marked by entangled continuities—an intricate double helix of memory, where past regimes cast long shadows over the present. One of the most audacious, ambitious, and incredibly arrogant ideas of the Cold War era was the extension of communism’s influence into space. Spurred by Hitler’s defeat and the competitive rivalry with the United States, the Soviet space program experienced a frenzy of scientific activity aimed at demonstrating communist superiority beyond Earth’s boundaries. In the 1970s GDR, top-secret military laboratories were established to create the optimally standardized bodies that cosmonauts would require. The New Human – the modern colonist of space – was rigorously trained to endure years of weightlessness. Experiments were conducted in prisons, hospitals, barracks and in sports to engineer the perfect body: self-sufficient and capable of withstanding extreme conditions for as long as possible. To exert dominance over space, it was first necessary to exercise total control over those being trained to conquer it.
Ines Geipel unravels this largely unknown and extraordinary story by delving into East German military records and speaking with those who bear the scars of this state-imposed trauma. Some of the older scientists conducting experiments had already served under the Nazi regime; others threw themselves into military research programs and cooperation with the Stasi to avoid confronting the emotional legacy of the war. This continuity of ideological coercion, spanning from the Third Reich into the GDR, exemplifies the German double helix of memory—where past and present remain inexorably intertwined. Written like a thriller and infused with the empathy of someone who has personally experienced the crippling effects of state-managed doping programs in the former GDR, this book uncovers some of the most unsettling episodes of Germany’s recent past.
The reading and moderated discussion will take place with a translator. Afterwards, there will be an opportunity for an informal Walk & Talk through the group exhibition, together with Ines Geipel and the curator.
Presented by the German-Maltese Circle Valletta and the Goethe-Institut Rome.
Daria’s Vision: Resistance, Spatial Dissolution, and Slowness
With Ruth Bianco & Verena Voigt
May 4, 11 a.m.
The artist talk explores concepts of resistance, spatial dissolution, and slowness. A moderated tour of the exhibition with curator Verena Voigt allows for comparisons of space and time.
Ruth Bianco approaches GLITCH ART through collage, film, and pre-digital processes. Her book Camouflage Revolution & Desire (2012) developed an analogue glitch aesthetic, inspired by the radical New Wave in filmmaking of the 1960s as a topical medium to explore new prospects in the collage language. In her installation, Bianco transforms the final explosion scene from Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970) into a 14-minute video collage, linking the 2011 Arab Spring protests with coded interpretations of global disquietudes and recurring social unrest.
Daria’s Vision plays with memory, media, and history. Using split-screen techniques, Antonioni’s iconic images are overlaid with journalistic footage of the 2011 protests. Past and present merge into a new, future narrative. First shown in Valletta in 2011, the installation highlights how glitch and collage can inform each other.
More information: https://www.ruthbianco.com/
Curatorial tour in German.
May 4, 2 p.m.
Those interested are kindly requested to get in touch with the curator of the exhibition directly at [email protected]
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