Korsten & De Jong

import execute as command

The multitude is biopolitical self-organization.  ˗ Hardt and Negri
LeWitt has stated that “[t]he idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” In his estimation conceptual art is nothing but a type of code for art making. LeWitt’s art is an algorithmic process. In Protocol Galloway has claimed that “[c]ode is the only language that is executable.” As Artistic Research duo Korsten & De Jong are interested in this exact performativity of code and in how they can position code in such a way that it informs theoretical concepts in the act of making. In their working together as a duo they bring to table notions evolving around ‘Toyotism’  As Galloway has pointed out, Toyotism originates in Japanese automotive production facilities. “Within Toyotism, small pods of workers mass together to solve a specific problem. The pods are not linear and fixed like the more traditional assembly line, but rather they are flexible and reconfigurable depending on whatever problem might be posed to them.” It leads Brand to invert Marx and Engel’s Communist Manifesto message of unity “Workers of the World, unite!” into “Workers of the World, fan out.” It is a strong incentive to move away from homophily the way Chun has defined it as a way to be comfortable only being exposed to things that are in line with our own norms and values. If homophily is a natural condition of networks, existing segregations in society are maintained. This segregation will only increase because the algorithms we have today contain inbuilt bias. Algorithms push people into clusters of sameness. With their Paper Performance Korsten & De Jong seek to challenge the notion of the bunker as formulated by Critical Art Ensemble. For them “[…] the bunker is both material and ideational. On the one hand, it serves as a concrete garrison where image (troops) reside. On the other hand, it confirms state-sponsored reality, by forever solidifying the reified notions of class, race, and gender.

Click here to view the remains of this cancelled presentation on Research Catalogue

 

Korsten & De Jong conduct Artistic Research as a duo. They are both independent artists, researchers and employed as lecturers in the art and theory department of ArtEZ, University of the Arts and they participate in the Professorship ‘Theory in Arts’. In ‘Paper Performances’ the tension between the seemingly binary opposition between theoretical and artistic practices is made productive in the field of artistic research.