ATPdiary invited some curators to point out three international artworks that summarize – or are meaningful of – three historical periods.
1 from the past, even very distant.
1 from the present, focusing on the contemporary moment.
1 from the future, with a strong perspective, in a nutshell, towards what’s next.
Emanuele Guidi
Past —
Graffiti di mani dipinte con tecnica stencil , Cueva de El Castillo, Spagna, circa 40.000 anni fa – popolo indigeno.
Una ricerca di pochi anni fa pubblicata sul National Geographic ha messo in dubbio l’autorialità delle immagini delle mani presenti in molte grotte in tutto il mondo (che variano tra i 9000 ed 40.000 anni fa). Da sempre associate a scene di caccia e per questo attribuite a uomini, le ricerche hanno evidenziato come la percentuale di mani che apparterrebbero a donne, sarebbe molto più alta.
Graffiti di mani dipinte con tecnica stencil, Cueva de El Castillo, Spagna, circa 40.000 anni fa – popolo indigeno
Present —
A Studio in Hand-Reading: Charlotte Wolff. Un progetto di Valentina Desideri, kunstverein Amsterdam
Look at your hand, that tool between a fin and a wing, which developed fingers, a thumb and now grasps and touches everything, real and imaginary. It images the real in its tactile rendering of objects, distances and shapes. It realizes the imaginary by gesturing, approximating thinking through space.
Can I read your hand?
Its surface, gestures and lines offer a complex image that calls for reading. Many readings actually, as each reading is in turn an imaging, a composition, an expression of possibilities.
Jason and Raimundas, Céline, Audrey, Koenraad, Jessica – Can I read your work?
Dr. Charlotte Wolff (1897–1986) read the palms of André Breton, Man Ray, Maurice Ravel, T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Antonin Artaud, Cecil Beaton and Aldous Huxley. She read their character in their hands and their palms also figure in her now rare and exceptional book Studies in Hand-Reading (1936).
But reading always happens between at least two: the reader and what is read – be it books, palms, objects, people, artworks. To engage in this kind of reading together is to engage in study. I propose to gather in the Studio, with books, hands, artworks, coffee and drinks, to read.
Jessica Warboys, Four Lines, 2011
Future —
Aleksandra Domanovi?, The future was at her fingerprints, 2013-2014
Nel progetto “The future was at her fingerprints” Domanovi? affronta la storia della “belgrade Hand”, uno dei primi tentativi di progettare una mano con il senso del tatto progettata nel 1963 in Serbia. Nel tracciare la storia di questa invenzione Domanovi?, fa emergere l’importanza di alcune donne nella ricerca che ha portato alla scoperta di Internet, cibernetica e della realtà virtuale.
Aleksandra Domanovi?, Little Sister II, 2014, Laser sintered PA plastic, polyurethane, Soft-Touch, copper finish, 9 x 11 x 22 cm. Courtesy the artist and Tanya Leighton, Berlin. Photo Georg Gaul
La serie di mani prodotte da Domanovi? è accompagnata da una cronologia:
1843 Ada Lovelace writes what is considered the first computer program
1867 The typewriter is introduced
1908 Kikunae Ikeda proposes the existence of umami
1950 A cybernetic tortoise is designed by William Grey Walter
1963 Rajko Tomovi? develops one of the earliest artificial limbs with a sense of touch known as the ‘Belgrade Hand’
1968 Marvin Minsky creates the tentacle arm
1968 Marvin Minsky is an adviser on the movie ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’
1973 The Internet consists of 25 computers
1977 In ‘Demon Seed’ by Donald Cammell, Susan Harris is impregnated by an artificial intelligence called Protheus; the AI uses the ‘Belgrade hand’ as it’s robotic prop
1980 Tito dies
1984 Hewlett Packard introduces the first inkjet printer available to consumers
1984 Jivamukti Yoga is founded in New York
1987 The second to last ‘Relay of Youth’ takes place in Yugoslavia; the baton is made out of plexiglass with 8 drops of blood
1988 Worm plagues the Internet
1989 Borka Jerman Blaži? registers the .yu domain
1989 Corbis is founded by Bill Gates
1996 Olia Lialina makes ‘My Boyfriend Came Back From the War’
1997 ‘Zeroes + Ones: Digital Women and the New Technoculture’ by Sadie Plant is published
1998 The first Lululemon store opens in Vancouver
2000 Saint Isidore of Seville is declared the patron saint of the Internet by the Vatican; he is also the patron saint of computers, computer users, and computer technicians
2006 Spam intensifies to 96% of all emails
2008 Bhutan acknowledges women’s full right to vote
2008 Shapeways launches a service allowing customers to design and produce their own 3 dimensional products
2010 .yu is the most heavily used top-level domain ever to be deleted
2012 Bayer MaterialScience LLC updates their soft-touch coating technology
2012 In ‘Prometheus’ by Ridley Scott, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw performs an abortion on herself, removing the alien fetus
2013 Zaha Hadid becomes the Veuve Clicquot businesswoman of the year
2025 New Zealand is completely smoke-free
2099 Most conscious beings lack a permanent physical form
