with works by Douglas Gordon, Dafna Maimon, Warren Neidich, Jeremy Shaw, Ryan Trecartin & Lizzie Fitch, Tabita Rezaire, Alfred Ehrhardt

The exhibition ‚Activist Neuroaesthetics‘ is divided into three parts: ‚Brain Without Organs‘, ‚Sleep and Altered States of Consciousness‘ and ‚Telepathy and New Labour‘.  The individual exhibitions will take place in our space from May 1st to August 8th, 2021.  Their designation is not hard-edged but fuzzy. One can imagine multiple links and confluences that bind them together.

The brain without organs (BrWO) derives its name from the earlier concept of the body without organs (BWO) as it was first defined by Antonin Artaud and later expanded upon by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980). It describes a body that is totally unfixed (like a teratoma or heterodox body) at variance with official doctrine. In this body, the organization of organs—from their cellular structure to their relationship with other organs and the organism as a whole—is free from the despotism of the body’s overall plan. In other words, it is free from the rules and regulations of the a priori program situated in the DNA code and the surveillance mechanisms operating in the socio-cultural context in which it is situated. Superimposing this idea of the body without organs onto the brain, one could say that a brain without organs does not lack modules, hubs, and verifiable cognits—it simply lacks the organism. The brain, as defined here, is composed of three interacting, entangled and coevolving systems: 1. The intracranial material brain located inside the skull composed of gray and white matter. 2. The situated and mobile body moving through and interacting with sensibility. 3. The extracranial brain composed of the world of objects, things, as well as, socio-cultural and technological relations and their ideological-discursive counterparts. Today, this intra-extracranial brain without organs might be considered post-colonial, post-humanist and post-capitalist.

* We ask for your understanding that the opening times may not be adhered to due to the Infection Protection Act. Please always come to us with an FFP2 mask and tested. We use the app luca.

The project was made possible with the generous support of the Haupstadtkulturfonds.