do as us users do

Participating collectives:
WORK HARD! PLAY HARD!
Jelena Visković
adO/Aptive

curated by adO/Aptive (Janina Weißengruber und Daniel Hüttler)

adO/Aptive will host a discursive and performative evening with the title „do as us users do“. The 3-part program is conceived to reflect on gamification and different modes of immersion into game-realms – be they IRL or fully virtual.

Program:
4 pm: Assembly „Decentric Circles of Leisure Unrest“ by WORK HARD! PLAY HARD!
6.30 pm: Film screening „Motonation” by Jelena Visković
7 pm: Performance „WHEN IN RO/AM“ by adO/Aptive

First, the WORK HARD! PLAY HARD! working group (Dzina Zhuk, Aleksei Borisionok, Olia Sosnovskaya, Nicolay Spesivtsev) will host an assembly titled “Decentric Circles of Leisure Unrest”, a dynamic, decentralized gathering that blends conversation with spontaneous creative acts to explore themes of joy, struggle, and refusal. The assembly delves into anti-capitalist notions of non-work, burnout, collective care, and resistance through shared tools, practices, and protocols.

Then, there will be a screening of "Motonation", a video work by Croatian-born, London-based artist Jelena Visković. Motonation is a sci-fi biker film set in near-future Belgrade following the story of Čedo, a member of a counterculture movement called Happy Nation, as he embarks on an adventure beyond the commune’s boundaries with the help of a hacked city-motorcycle. The journey explores Čedo’s relationship with movement, his motivation to tap into a world of desire and expression that extends beyond the social and spatial boundaries of Happy Nation. The film explores movement, body-politics and performance in former Yugoslavia and in the region today. The characters face comedic alienation both when it comes to performativity of past narratives, and in relation to neoliberal ideas around freedom and community.

In the end, adO/Aptive will show their performance “WHEN IN RO/AM” that premiered in May at Torula Kunsthalle in Györ. The performance stages a sports match in two halves divided by a half-time show that features a surprise act. The six players wear jerseys with RFDI chips that can be read by a scanner on the central sculptural element, the "Sacrificial Input Box". The piece is a performative response to the post-informative nature of the extractive practices of platform capitalism and highlights the fragility of our online identities as well as the commercialization of personal information.