Mykonos Biennale: Pirate States 2013

PIRATE STATES
Crisis and Paganism
1st Mykonos Biennale - Cine Manto
June 21-24, 2013

ARTISTS: Alison Williams, Betty Tompkins, Colette Lumiere and Friedericke Schaefer, [dNASAb], Eve Vaterlaus and Peter Fend, Gary Indiana, Gregory de la Haba, Heide Hatry, Katie Peyton,
Lee Wells, Marjan Moghaddam, O Zhang, and Pierrot.

ORGANIZERS: Katie Peyton and Lee Wells


Peanut Underground is proud to present “Pirate States” at the 1st Mykonos Biennale.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJK3Q900WII[/youtube]

The avant-garde has returned. A new supermodern aesthetic is here: a new awareness formed in wake of cultural post-traumatic stress, institutional corruption, and postmodern complacency. All these crises are caused by a general disrespect for new ideas. Time is marching on.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz-CZbD0VGQ[/youtube]

The Pirate States are geographically located between hyperreality and the glitch, in the slipstream of the spectacle. Descending from the Cloud, art exists as actual and potential energy, as performance, as memory. It does not ask to be understood, only to be freed.

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/68586457[/vimeo]

These artists create work with no fixed shape or location: nomadic artifacts that jump the rails of the global surveillance state. The avant-garde is on the attack.

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/10632712[/vimeo]

We are flash mobs and creative insurgencies, kitenic undergrounds with virile digitalia. Armed with new ideas coming from deep space, ancient myth and Antarctica, artists now engage in a borderless discourse unpredictably more complicated than ever before. Necessity demands new forms.

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/64034008[/vimeo]

Godard said, “The so-called ‘digital’ is not a mere technical medium, but a medium of thought. And when modern democracies turn technical thought into a separate domain, those modern democracies incline towards totalitarianism.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWl8D3ySLqU[/youtube]

Jorn said, “The avant-garde doesn’t give up.”

The avant-garde is essential to our survival. What will emerge is left open. We are. It is.

Crisis and Paganism addresses the failures of global capitalism in the 21st century, as manifested by the current economic crisis in Greece and its overall effects on networked society. But as we acknowledge the pending collapse of corrupt capitalist systems, we celebrate the infinite spirit of creation. We call out to the ancient gods for new knowledge and inspiration, and to grant us the vision and fortitude to free ourselves from all forms of repression and austerity. The festival strives to cultivate a fresh energy, through the creative convergence of artists and thinkers, in the hopes of reflecting a new positive light back into the world.

The First Mykonos Biennale is an artist-run, avant-garde festival of new media, film and art. Opening on the Summer Solstice, the Biennale brings over 100 international artists to the ancient islands of Mykonos and Delos, Greece to present their work and address this year’s theme, “Crisis and Paganism.“

Artistic Director: Lydia Venieri
Executive Producer: Andonis Kioukas
Curators: Pier Luigi Tazzi, Katie Peyton, Lee Wells, and Ed Steinberg.

Press inquiries contact
Katie Peyton or Lee Wells: nyc(att)peanutunderground.com

www.peanutunderground.com