Call No. 6 – Planetary Glitch

Against the background of climate change, rising sea-levels and the chemical alteration and industrialization of the planet, this call asked for new open–source strategies for undoing the trap of this planetary shift.

Curator and juror Mary Maggic invited artists, designers, (bio)hackers, technologists, storytellers, writers, healers and shape-shifters to hand in pleasure tutorials, witchcraft and alchemy, collective coping mechanisms, online networks of care, information emancipation, training exercises, and other formats.

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Call release: November 23, 2018
Applications: until January 6, 2019 (midnight)
Web residencies: January 14 – Feburary 11, 2019
Residents:  Natasha Tontey (Yogyakarta, Indonesia), Tiare Ribeaux (Oakland, CA, USA), Jennifer Katanyoutanant (Bangkok, Thailand), Bassem Saad (Beirut, Lebanon), Miriam Simun (New York, NY, USA)
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»Alienation is the labor of freedom’s construction.«
– Laboria Cuboniks –

As petroleum burns ceaselessly, cutting holes in the atmosphere… As hormones, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals colonize every watery body… As rare-earth mining and e-waste amplify for our cars, computers, and smartphone convenience… And as micro-plastics and PCBs nest in the microscopic cracks of our biology, birthing a new »toxic progeny (1)«… This planet glitches, queering our notions of normal and natural.

We live in an alien landscape, one that we no longer know.

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Climate change, rising sea-levels and the chemical alteration and industrialization of the planet have been largely driven by patriarchal, hegemonic, capitalist forces. These are the very same forces that uphold the all too familiar systems that devalue nonmales, migrants, animals, and nature, and justify the overall exploitation of the planet. This collective mutagenesis paralyzes us as much as it should mobilize us, urging us to seek solidarity and symbiosis among industrial and ecological ruins. Like Xenofeminism suggests, we must seize this »alienation as an impetus to generate new worlds (2),« new myths, new disobediences, and new commonalities.

Let us change the course of this alienation. Both now and the future require a new commons, harnessed and transformed out of the planetary glitch that implicates and connects us all. In response, can we create open–source strategies founded in inclusion, diversity, balance, and equity? Tactics which undermine the glorification of technology and technosolutionism, and remain ever-critical? Might we find resistance in imaginations of the new normal and the new natural? As the mechanical glitch of computers resist their binary language, so too does glitch act as a »much-needed erratum (3)« to our current systems of violence.

»The glitch is the catalyst, not the error. The glitch is the happy accident.«
– Legacy Russell –

This is a call for artists, designers, (bio)hackers, technologists, storytellers, writers, healers and shape-shifters to create new open–source strategies for undoing the trap of this planetary shift. Among these strategies may include kitchen recipes for eating the other, pleasure tutorials, witchcraft and alchemy, collective coping mechanisms, online networks of care, information emancipation, training exercises for becoming-with our mutations, biohacking protocols for freeing toxic substances from their molecular mystique, and digital tools for radical interconnectedness.  

Text and image by Mary Maggic

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(1) Heather Davies, »Toxic Progeny: The Plastisphere and Other Queer Futures« (2016)

(2) Laboria Cuboniks, »Xenofeminist Manifesto« (2015)

(3) Legacy Russell, »Digital Dualism and the Glitch Feminism Manifesto« (2012)

Mary Maggic is a non-binary artist working at the intersection of biotechnology, cultural discourse, and civil disobedience. Their work spans documentary video, scientific methodology, public workshopology, performance, and large scale installation. Maggic’s most recent projects Open Source Estrogen and Estrofem! Lab generate DIY protocols for the extraction and detection of estrogen hormone from bodies and environments, demonstrating its micro-performativity and potential for mutagenesis, i.e. gender-hacking. They hold a BSA in Biological Science and Art from Carnegie Mellon University and a MS in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT Media Lab and have had the privilege to exhibit and/or perform at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), OK Center (Linz), Haus der elektronischen Kunst (Basel), Jeu de Paume (Paris), Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), and Spring Workshop (Hong Kong).