Seoul Mediacity Biennale has announced Anton Vidokle, Hallie Ayres and Lukas Brasiskis as artistic directors of its 13th edition, following an open call.
For this edition, the trio have proposed an ‘exhibition-as-séance’. In a press release, the biennale outlines ‘a show that employs the mechanics of séance as a way to move away from the contemporary neoliberal conception of biennial exhibitions and towards the construction of a heightened experience in which waking life is entangled with the more-than-human world.’
The curators will explore and present works of art that ‘bridge material and immaterial worlds and critically approach the present’, connecting the exhibition to discourses ranging from feminism to indigeneity, anticapitalism and postcolonialism. The focus will turn on Seoul itself, too, as a city informed by spirituality as much as technology.
Anton Vidokle is an artist, filmmaker and founder of e-flux. He has exhibited in two editions of Gwangju Biennale, where he won the Noon Award in 2016, as well as a solo show at MMCA in 2019. Hallie Ayres is a curator, researcher and art historian who has published and lectured on the reconciliation of indigenous and Western knowledge production through spiritual belief systems. Lukas Brasiskis is a PhD scholar and film curator, whose research explores the limits and potentials of moving image media to present more-than-human perspectives.
The 13th edition is due to open in Autumn 2025.