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THe coucH

art commissions

Farzané & Arash: Embedded/Embodied

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essay

The Image of an Image is a Memory: Clash of the Imperial Gaze

Bhavneet Kaur    Maria Vorobjova   

Today, a walk in the museum is a walk with a camera. Is the hegemonic narrative of the exhibition questioned by the camera? Or does the camera become an accomplice to the museum?

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mystics

essay

Dasha’s Kitchen: My magical grilled cheese sandwich recipe

Dasha Ilina    Naomi Hettiarachchige–Hubèrt   

Dasha Ilina tricks the search algorithms that might read her essay about algorithmic surveillance into thinking it’s just a recipe for a grilled cheese sandwich.

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fiction

Ötza and the Open-Ended Becoming of the World

Levi van Gelder    Mitchel Peters   

Confessions of a Cryodesiccated Fanfiction Entrepreneur From the Neolithic.

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feature

Under the Spell of the Sensuous: What David Abram’s Environmental Philosophy Can Teach Us

Hannah Pezzack    Anja Kaiser   

“We can navigate the intricate workings of the planet without the need for absolute mastery, embracing uncertainty and opening ourselves to unexpected insights and interlocutors, be they human or more-than.“

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mystics

music

Singing To The Machine: Orpheu The Wizard

Orpheu The Wizard    Rustan Söderling   

This mix by Orpheu The Wizard consists of a selection of songs loosely revolving around the themes of Mystics of the Chthulucene. First up in a new mix series, where artists, selectors, and music geeks connect sounds to a broader and recurring artistic research theme that weaves through The Couch.

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interview

Farzané & Arash: Artificial Acoustemology

Loes de Boer    Farzané    Arash Akbari   

"The question that piques my curiosity is not whether machines can exhibit human creativity, but rather to explore how human-machine interactions can lead to the development of aesthetics or epistemologies that are based on the combined agency of both entities."

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essay

Thinking through the supermarket

Ilaria Obata    Maria Vorobjova   

Ilaria Obata takes a fresh look at the vast environment of the supermarket chain in this analytical essay. 

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fiction

I Become You

Isa Mazzei    Hussein Shikha   

“I love your face. I guess if I had to look at it every day, it wouldn’t be the worst.”

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mystics

podcast

Future Artefacts Episode 4: David Blandy

Future Artefacts FM   

For the fourth episode of our collaboration with Future Artefacts FM, hosts Nina and Niamh talk with David Blandy. While revisiting his work, they explore the ends of multiple worlds, from family illness, the foundations of a political system shattering and the end of a 17 year old magical gaming world, Asheron’s Call.

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mystics

video

Androids Dream

David Blandy   

A temporary screening of a work by British artist David Blandy, the guest on the fourth episode of our collaboration with Future Artefacts FM.

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fiction

The New Build: A Companion Haunting

Leigh Alexander    Alice Guerin   

That was the top-rated post on Raising, the occult AI forum where Nessa had found the instructions to build Robin 3. Raising was an “occult” group as in secret and illegal uses of language models, not as in black magic, Nessa was pretty sure.

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director's commentary

video

Directors Commentary: Rabbit 314 by Hsu Che-Yu

Hsu Che-Yu   

Hsu Che-Yu secured the body of a dead rabbit from the animal research facility where his grandmother used to work in her youth. Together with scriptwriter Chen Wan-Yin and a glove puppeteer, they made the rabbit come alive– as imagined by humans.

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essay

The distant bungee jumper, a dangling herring

Charlie Jermyn    Mel Keane   

Charlie Jermyn was on a mission to discover the history of the North Sea resort town of Scheveningen. The essay tracks Charlie’s disorientating pilgrimage through a haze of mystical sea creatures, marshland, beached whales, kibbling, hungry gulls, and bungee jumpers. 

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poetry

The horizon shifts as I do

Eleni Maragkou    Milo Sharafeddine   

Did you know that sequoia trees can grow taller than data centres can?
In the outskirts of Amsterdam, there are many of the latter, corrupting the horizon.

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art commissions

Asa Horvitz: Ghost

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video

Old Child

Mitko Mitkov   

Old Child is a piece for soft voice and eerie sounds. It is an artifact of a certain time and place, as well as a tribute to the ghosts inhabiting it. An old child does not show interest in playing with their peers but prefers to spend their time listening to seniors talking about long-gone times.

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podcast

Crit Club Ep.2: Lucia Pietroiusti and Nora Sternfeld

Cem A.    Roberto Winter   

In this podcast, a contextual performance by Cem A. (aka @freeze_magazine) and Roberto Winter, curators Lucia Pietroiusti and Nora Sternfeld debate an impossible question: should museums exhibit only living artists, or dead artists?

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director's commentary

video

Directors Commentary: DEADPAN BUSTED by Aukje Dekker

Aukje Dekker   

For this Director’s Commentary, Aukje Dekker reads the e-mail she wrote to Steve McQueen in 2016, and dives into McQueen's Dead Pan (1997), which in turn is a remake of Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) by Buster Keaton, of which her own DEADPAN is an reenactment.

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essay

In The Door Opening of The Bedroom

Zazie Duinker    Maria Vorobjova   

'The bedroom is the locus of a becoming, spread out across multiple dimensions. Every night, as I close my bedroom door behind me, this process is set in motion, and every morning, just as it is about to become actualised, it disappears.'

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