The Materialization of the Platform: Infrastructures of Edutainment on dis.art
Abstract:
Yvonne Schweizer’s essay takes DIS’s curatorial contribution to the Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement 2021 des Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève as its starting point. DIS’s practice combines analog exhibition displays with a digital streaming service; since 2018, the collective has been operating dis.art, a digital platform for video art. The early 2020s saw a reorganization of social life via digital platforms as a result of the pandemic. Given the importance of digital interfaces during this period, the decision to transpose this situation into the exhibition design of the Biennale seems like a fitting commentary on the time. Visitors found themselves displaced within the infrastructure of a streaming platform, reflected in the spatial arrangement, use of props, and contents of the individual viewing cabins. The interfaces and genres of commercial streaming services were referenced throughout the exhibition, from tutorials to documentaries, sci-fi epics to drama series; the platform thus served a materialized work form that anchored edutainment formats within an artistic context. My essay locates the collective’s display at the Biennale, and the video Everything but the World specifically, within the current critical discourse around digital platforms.

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