From Multidirectional Memory to Multidirectional Moments
November 2022
We are pleased to announce the launch of From Multidirectional Memory to Multidirectional Moments (MDM), a new long term inquiry and artistic research project organized with the department of Artistic Strategies at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna (Die Angewandte). With Palais des Beaux Arts Wien (PdBA) as a starting point, MDM will bring together a core team of artists including Bernhard Garnicnig (founder, PdBA) and Seth Weiner (current artistic director, PdBA), Antoine Turillon and Stephanie Misa (University of Applied Arts Vienna, Artistic Strategies), and Sarrita Hunn (co-founder/editor, MARCH) to research geographically dispersed examples of how “multidirectional” approaches to memory challenge assumptions and what new forms are emerging within contemporary art.
While decentralization, decolonization, immateriality, and appropriation have long been topics of discussion within the fine arts, MDM considers how they remain mostly absent from more official and politically visible forms, spaces and institutions dedicated to remembrance. As Michael Rothberg suggests, memory should work productively through negotiation, cross-referencing, and borrowing to “allow marginalized groups to create counter-memories that challenge hegemonic memory regimes.”1
Without keys to the building it occupies and continuously in-progress, the Palais des Beaux Arts Wien is a cultural institution where exhibitions take place at multiple sites and times simultaneously.
A launch event, “Loops, Multiplication & Remembrance” on November 16th (18h) at Die Angewandte, will bring together the MDM core team for an evening of discussions with PdBA’s most recent commissioned artists Hannah Marynissen, Rafal Morusiewicz, Chris Dake-Outhet, and nathan c’ha. Further on and offline MDM public presentations will be announced later in 2023.
Hosting a collection of commissioned artworks and texts, the Palais des Beaux Arts Wien surrounds an Art Nouveau building of the same name from 1908 with a cloud of data. Creating a conceptually unmarked space between the history of the building in Vienna and its environment, data becomes the interface for the reproduction and representation of art and institutionality in the post-digital age. The Palais des Beaux Arts Wien is more-or-less always open, and can be copied, carried around in your pocket and even deleted.
MDM is made possible with support from the University of Applied Arts Vienna INTRA program.
Footnotes
- Fernanda, “Multidirectional Memory in focus: Interview with Michael Rothberg,” Observing Memories, vol. 5, December 20, 2019, https://europeanmemories.net/magazine/multidirectional-memory-in-focus.