BODY WAS MADE
Group exhibition

The diversity manifests as a sense of fluidity that seeps into all identifications - not heterosexual, not cis-gender, and not rigidly masculine or feminine. The non-binary future is now and it flourishes in the culture of collective appreciation for the differences among us. Intersectionality breaks the cycle of oppression and unifies those divided by society and culture. And yet the now of the non-binary is not omnipresent, and thus we are in a state of flux.

Artists transcend gender labels and gendered behaviours through different images, materials and performances.

Foyer

Marlena Iglseder & Xéna N.C.
What makes one picture feminine and the other masculine? Can we see how the poses, facial expressions, settings and lighting reflect real-life issues? Why do we have to be on either one side of the frame or the other? Or can we really be anything we want, but at the end of the day, are unfortunately stuck into boxes by society - or in this case a picture frame?
www.instagram.com/xenancofficial/
www.instagram.com/pics.by.dawson/

Huda Takriti / NOWHERE NOW HERE
not all what is there is intentionally invisible
& as we stand
between a here and a there
we mark a point of a return and a departure
& as we speak
of potential pasts and potential futures
twisting tongues, weaving images
of dialogues attached to meanings
words in translation
faintly heard
as the wind carries us
separately and together
About artist
Huda Takriti explores gaps in historical memory by merging personal and national narratives and generating questions around them. She is currently completing the doctoral program PhD in Practice at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. She completed her master's degree at the TransArts department at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in 2020. Her work has recently been shown at (selected) mumok - museum moderner kunst stiftung ludwig wien, Kunsthalle Wien, [.Box] Video Art Project Space (Italy), Centre d’art Sa Quartera (Spain), among others. Most recently, she was awarded the Vordemberge Gildewart Prize (2022), the Kunsthalle Prize (2020), the WHW Akademija Fellowship (2022) and the Camargo Foundation Fellowship (2023).
https://hudatakriti.com

Studio 2

Yuwol June C. / this is too much possibilities and impossibilities
Making a plan and realizing it.
How often do we succeed?
We plan all the time, but it is so easy to find out that it was just a plan, just another perception.
About artist
Yuwol June C. is a time-based artist. Their works aim to make one aware of the neglected spots
dwelling among us. Their artistic language focuses on the liminal space between words, images,
objects and bodies.
www.instagram.com/k_otj_/

Ciwan Veysel / Breath
The Breath series accompanies the patriarchal violence applied to our queer bodies, toxic masculinity, prohibitions, boundaries, inner liberation and the journey of unconditional breathing with our bodies with personal experience dynamics.
About artist
Ciwan Veysel is a Turkey-born queer visual artist who lives and works in Vienna. Through the connection between art and identity, the artist’s production deals with identity issues such as immigration, queer struggle and visibility, queer body politics, the dynamics of self-discovery, and Kurdish identity issues. Ciwan also continues with photography, curating and performance at Vienna-based artist collectives.
www.instagram.com/ciwanvm/

Adrian Hall Kranz & Iwana Sudimac
Is Hair Gender?
Does it define my persons?
Does it define my sexuality?
Hair is a part of my identity
It is another way to express myself.
Its gender fluid-ness isn’t fixed to any gender.
Is Hair Gender ?
Does it define my persons?
Does it define my sexuality?
Hair has no Gender.

Artists, Adrian Hall-Kranz (Hair Artist) and Iwana Sudimac (Photographer) capture the essence of the embodiment of hair and movement.

About artists
Adrian Hall-Kranz started The Good Bush Project in 2020 in hopes to spread cultural awareness of Black hair culture in an artistic approach. Through her work, it became more of an art form and a way to express her creativity, which she continues to do so with The Good Bush Project.
Growing up in Vienna with an immigrant background, Iwana's perspective was challenged on what is or isn’t. Often she would flee into her fantasy world, which she later created with her photographer.
www.instagram.com/showyourtits

Marija Šabanović / Mirrors
Mirrors focuses on bodies and reflections.
„My need to work on topics such as body stems from the understanding that many issues, social or personal, carry the body at their core. Whether we are talking about physical or mental health, or about global politics, we cannot bypass the question of the body. The body is, therefore, probably one of the most important positioning factors in the social hierarchy.
When we stand in front of a mirror, the reflection we see is very significant feedback that we get in a split second. This information is not easy for everyone to deal with, and I believe it is because society has made some bodies more vulnerable than others. Society is putting us under pressure by teaching us about the way we should look from a very young age. These expectations put people of different ages, genders, sexualities, and cultures in the position to be discriminated against and bullied. It affects their mental and physical health on a daily basis.“
About artist
Marija Šabanović was born in Niš, Serbia, where she completed her architecture degree. While still in high school, Marija was involved in anti-war activism, and during her studies, she joined a local initiative dealing with the rights and visibility of the LGBTIQ people in southern Serbia. Marija has been living in Vienna since 2012 and is currently studying photography at Die Graphische. 
http://www.marijasabanovic.com

Studio 1

Animal Bro / Red Shoes
Red Shoes opens with the familiar hardboiled noir setting and the archetypal tough masculine protagonist. But what seemed like a shady hand-over turns out to be a date, and the protagonist is wearing high heels.
What a twist! But what does this say about our expectations? Are plot twists a rejection of our expectations, or are misaligned expectations a rejection of what is?
The change we need is not to create more boxes to fit into, but to become comfortable with being creative and playful - an unchecked box, a wildcard.
About artist
My name is Finn and I create under the moniker Animal Bro. I am a Serbian-Australian visual artist and writer working primarily with ink drawing, as well as various mixed media and digital art. Born and raised in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, I obtained an MFA in painting from the University of Art in Belgrade. I participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions and festivals and completed a few international residencies.
My interests include comics, printing, zines and independent publishing, murals and art in public spaces.
I see art as a medium of communication and empowerment. As artists, by sharing our stories we invite and give others agency to do the same.
kweerkat.com
instagram.com/animal_bro14/

WERISTdICHTER? & Alexandru Cosarca / PURPLE IS BURNING
Movie screening: 17.3 5 PM
The video documentation shows the course of the day through 3 different camera perspectives, from preparations and construction of the show to individual interviews with the artists.
What does it mean to create art in times of pandemic and lockdown? Where does the queer community find (safe) places and how important are safer spaces in the offline world?
The 54min documentary shows and forms a mosaic of different opinions and comments from the artists and presents the format of WERISTdICHTER?

With Alexandru Cosarca, Sarah Tasha Hauber, Ari Ban, Danielle Pamp, Kiki House of Dive, Marie Luise Lehner, Sheezus H Christin, Drag Kings Of Vienna, Lena Johanna Hödl, Preach and Don Jegosa, LA GEORGETTA, Susie Flowers + Chica Chicago, Tony Renaissance, Rosa Anschutz, Catu Diosis, Katrinka Kitschovsky, Eric Abrogoua.
www.instagram.com/weristdichter/

Sarah Tasha Hauber / Queering the Kunsthistorisches Museum
In the context of the project Queering the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Sarah created videos for the museum's account on the social media platform Tiktok. In a total of 9 videos that were published online over the period of the Pride month June, Sarah refers to paintings from the museum's art gallery,  taking the place of the protagonists against the blank background of each painting. Hauber makes lipsyncs in drag as a modern interpreted Archangel Michael & the Devil, or else comment on current socio-economic inequalities in our society as Marie Antoinette.
In addition, the videos were played on a screen in the museum to expand the museum space with pop & social media elements, breaking down the boundaries between online performance and fine arts.
About artist
Sarah Tasha Hauber works as a freelance artist and photographer in Vienna. They work mainly with performance, social media, video, digital art as well as photography. Recurring themes in their artistic practice are political and social issues, gender, feminism and (online) media. They are particularly interested in the intersections of art, pop, and politics, as well as the intentional use/alienation of advertising and social media codes and aesthetics from a queer feminist perspective.
www.sarahtasha.com

Leila Samari & Maryam Sehhat / A woman's odyssey
A woman's odyssey is a symbolic narrative of a woman's struggle and her journey for freedom. In this way of migration, she dies many times and is born again in a new form... This odyssey is somehow a praise of nature and life. A goldfish in eastern culture is a symbol of life, which a woman embraces and tries to rescue it. A fish carries a human embryo inside itself.
About artists
Leila Samari (born in Iran, 1979). She went to the art university in Tehran in 2001, with a bachelor's in Graphic design. In 2016 she has got admission to Vienna university and came to Austria in 2017. In Iran and in Austria also other countries she had some group and solo painting and illustration exhibitions. She writes stories and poems and makes some of their animations. These animations were successful and were screened at some festivals around the world.
www.leilasamari.art
Maryam Sehhat (Iran, 1982)
Arts and Architecture Tehran University, Bachelor of Arts in Painting 2006.
In 2017 she went to Austria to continue her education at Vienna University. She had some painting exhibitions in Iran and Austria. She also makes short animations for festivals. In her paintings, she tries to show the physical and mental relationship between humans and the environment around them in a metaphoric way. 
www.maryamsehhat.at

.:.::.Sisi.:.::.. / ITERATIVE BODY SYNTHESIS
Linking performative online investigation with contextualising process documentation, the media installation ITERATIVE BODY SYNTHESIS acts as a self-operating research infrastructure and a monitoring interface for sisi.spec, a virtual identity on Instagram.

Tracing potentials of synthetic data, a specially developed software architecture samples and analyses the influence of Instagram‘s image recognition systems on the over- and under-representation of body images on this platform. In a feedback loop, the most consistent patterns between body characteristics and online visibility are evaluated and iteratively cast into an evolving virtual performance of continuous body transformations. A virtual hyper-embodiment of Instagram‘s affective economies and notions of integrity that explores possibilities for monitoring, documenting and analysing the impact and agency of image recognition systems that maintain, filter and verify our media realities.

A specially developed software architecture of several artificial neural networks navigated by an auto-evaluating sampling algorithm iteratively generates sequences of 3D body transformations, renders them into short video clips, and automatically shares them on Instagram. In the continuous iteration of this sampling and variations of it in different Instagram environments, a steadily refining self-referential system evolves. Providing a database for various studies, deeper network analysis and cross-referencing that allows factors like user interaction or hashtags to be filtered in order to gradually pose more and more informative visual queries to Instagram. In this way, with each iteration cycle, recurring consistencies and patterns of algorithmic prioritisation and discrimination inscribe themselves deeper into the appearance and movement of the virtual body.
About artists
Blaukind (Media artist) /Software development: Instagram API scripting
Kevin Daryl Ferdinandus (Media artist) /Video documentation: Concept, Cinematography,
Postproduction
Claudia Strate (Writer / independent researcher) / Video documentation: Concept, Narration
Project communication: Editorial
Michael Wallinger (Media artist)/ Project: artistic direction, Software development: Backend & frontend design, Machine learning architecture, System implementation, CGI visualisations:
Animations & Automation, Video documentation: Concept, Animations
Enrico Zago (CGI artist) / CGI visualisations: Texture painting (sisi.spec)
with the friendly support of MediaFutures and Horizon2020
www.instagram.com/sisi.spec/