The practice of séances — attempts to make contact with voices and worlds on different scales beyond the living, through the agency of a medium — flourished during the social transformations of the early modernist period. This was symptomatic of an explosion of popular interest in Spiritualism, the occult, mysticism, and syncretic religion as emotional and imaginative alternatives to the stress and alienation of an increasingly mechanistic, regimented, and rationalist industrial society. These practices and ideas would come to influence the work of myriad vanguard artists.

Over the course of the intervening century, formats as varied as cinema screenings, psychoanalytic sessions, and experimental theatre came to be referred to as séances (the word might literally be translated as ‘sittings’). Now — in a comparably traumatic period, characterized by the same disorientation, anxiety, and insecurity — it is not surprising that many artists are looking to make connections with other worlds. In doing so, they seek emancipation from the structures — capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy, racism — that shape lived realities. Their practices are not obscurantist or reactionary; they do not dismiss scientific inquiry out of hand so much as trouble the marriage of technology and anti-rationalism. If they are united by anything, it is their rejection of the exploitative logics of industrial capitalism, in favour of a technology of the spirit.

Along these lines, biennale curators Anton Vidokle, Hallie Ayres, and Lukas Brasiskis will discuss their ongoing research for the 13th Mediacity Seoul Biennale. Elena Vogman will introduce the media experiments practiced by the reform and resistance movement of institutional psychotherapy. Angela Melitopoulos will present a cine-somatic excursus with excerpts from her Cine(so)matrix exhibition related to animism.

In English
With

Angela Melitopoulos
Anton Vidokle
Lukas Brasiskis
Hallie Ayres
Elena Vogman

Organized by

Organized by Seoul Mediacity Biennale of the Seoul Museum of Art in cooperation with ICI Berlin

How to Attend
  • At the venue (registration required): Registration opens on 3 June 2025.

The audience is presumed to consent to a possible recording on the part of the ICI Berlin.
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Image credit © Graphical Identity of the 13th Mediacity Seoul Biennale, NONPLACE studio, 2025