Vol 5 No 01 (2024)
Studies on the Venice Biennale: National Pavilions

Between the Biennials: Cultural Networks in Times of Geopolitical Crisis

Carmen Lael Hines
Vienna University of Technology
Helge Mooshammer
Vienna University of Technology and Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Peter Mörtenböck
Vienna University of Technolgy and Goldsmiths College, University of London

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− DOI: https://doi.org/10.25432/2724-086X/5.1.00014

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− Abstract

This essay unpacks key issues of transnational curatorial collaboration that emerged during the Biennale Architettura 2021, a high-profile cultural event marked by the uncertainties and challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. The article places particular focus on the happenings of the Curators Collective, a coalition of national pavilion curators formed in relation to this particular Biennale, as a case study for considering the tensions and possibilities that come with mutually supportive networks in the context of international cultural exhibition events. We Like, the Austrian contribution to the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennial, dedicated to platform urbanism, became a site of transnational curatorial collaboration and is discussed in the article to contextualise the numerous projects and events of the first Biennale Architettura Midissage (August 27-29, 2021), jointly organised by several dozen national pavilions to fulfil the Biennale’s potential as a platform for synergistic collaboration, solidarity, and accessibility.

− Keywords
Biennale Architettura 2021, Curators Collective (CC), Austrian Pavilion, Transnational collaboration, CC Midissage

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Copyright (c) 2024 Carmen Lael Hines, Helge Mooshammer, Peter Mörtenböck

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− Author Biographies

CARMEN LAEL HINES is a writer, researcher, and curator interested in tech, bodies, and the implications of their entanglements. She has lived and worked in the UK, Italy, Puerto Rico, Austria and the US. She is currently a lecturer in the Department of Visual Cultures at the Technical University of Vienna, where she teaches critical theory to students studying architecture. She is currently pursuing a PhD in philosophy at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna (working title: #plantpeople, platform urbanism and the plant complex). Her research concerns the visual culture of platforms and technology, where she explored topics such as AI, neoliberal aesthetics, femtech, home automation, dating apps, platform urbanisation, and the architectures of finance and speculation. She is currently editing two books, Dissident Practices: Posthumanist Approaches to a Critique of Political Economy, to be published by Bloomsbury, and Bordering Plants and their Containments, to be published by Sternberg Press. She was on the curatorial team for Austria’s contribution to the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021, where her research on platform urbanism was presented as part of the exhibition. She has curated exhibitions/programmes at: Exhibit (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna), e-flux screening room NY, The Austrian Cultural Forum NY, Architekturzentrum Wien (as part of the Claiming*Space Collective) and Galerie Kandlhofer, amongst others. She has lectured at institutions in Austria, Italy, Germany, Spain, Sweden and the UK. She hosts a podcast with writer and filmmaker Morgane Billuart called Girl Employee, which explores femtech, digital feminism(s), platform capitalism, and visual culture.

HELGE MOOSHAMMER is an architect, author and curator. He conducts urban and cultural research in the Department of Visual Culture at the TU Wien, is Co-Director of the Centre for Global Architecture, and Research Fellow at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

He has initiated and directed numerous international research projects focusing on issues relating to (post)capitalist urban economics and urban informality, including the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) projects 'Relational Architecture' (2006 –2009), 'Other Markets' (2010 – 2015) and 'Incorporating Informality' (2018 – 2023). In 2008 he was a Research Fellow at the Internationales Forschungszentrum für Kulturwissenschaften (IFK) in Vienna. He has taught at a number of institutions, including the University of Art and Design Linz, the Merz Akademie Stuttgart, and Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Helge Mooshammer’s current research is focussed on architecture, contemporary art and new forms of urban sociality in a context shaped by processes of trans-nationalisation, neo-liberalisation and infrastructuring. Together with PETER MÖRTENBÖCK he curated the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021, which explored the theme of “platform urbanism. ”His latest publications co-authored with Peter Mörtenböck include Informal Market Worlds: The Architecture of Economic Pressure (with Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman, nai010 publishers, 2015), Andere Märkte: Zur Architektur der informellen Ökonomie (transcript, 2016), Visual Cultures as Opportunity (Sternberg, 2016), Data Publics: Public Plurality in an Era of Data Determinacy (Routledge, 2020), Platform Urbanism and Its Discontents (nai010 publishers, 2021), and IN/FORMAL Marketplaces: Experiments with Urban Reconfiguration (nai010 publishers, 2023).

 

Peter Mörtenböck and Helge Mooshammer are currently working on their new book, “Building Capital: Urban Speculation and the Architec­ture of Finance”.

 

Their research and curatorial work has been presented, amongst others, at the Whitechapel Gallery London, the Nederlands Architecture Institute Rotterdam, Storefront for Art and Architecture New York, Proekt Fabrika Moskau, Santral Istanbul, Gasworks London, Architekturzentrum Vienna, Israeli Center for Digital Art, Trafo Gallery Budapest, Toronto Free Gallery, Ellen Gallery Montreal, Nash Gallery Minnesota, James Gallery New York, Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, CAFA Art Museum Beijing, and the Venice Biennale.

PETER MÖRTENBÖCK is Professor of Visual Culture at the TU Wien, Co-Director of the Centre for Global Architecture and Senior Research Fellow at Goldsmiths College, University of London. His current research is focused on the architecture of the political community and the economisation of the city, as well as the global use of raw materials, urban infrastructures and new data publics. Together with Helge Mooshammer, he curated the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021, which explored the theme of 'platform urbanism'.

Peter Mörtenböck’s appointment at the TU Wien was preceded by two other offers of a professorship in Vienna – Professor of Architectural Design (Geography, Landscapes, Cities) at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2018) and Professor of Architectural Theory at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (2019). Following his professorial habilitation in the field of cultural history at the TU Graz he was immediately offered the position of Professor of Media Aesthetics at the University of Paderborn, a position he held in 2002. Prior to this he was a guest professor of fine art at the University of Art and Design Linz from 2000 to 2001, and from 1998 to 2000 he conducted research as an Erwin Schrödinger Fellow at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and returned there as a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow from 2005 to 2007.

His latest publications co-authored with Helge Mooshammer include Informal Market Worlds: The Architecture of Economic Pressure (with Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman, nai010 publishers, 2015), Andere Märkte: Zur Architektur der informellen Ökonomie (transcript, 2016), Visual Cultures as Opportunity (Sternberg, 2016), Data Publics: Public Plurality in an Era of Data Determinacy (Routledge, 2020), Platform Urbanism and Its Discontents (nai010 publishers, 2021), and IN/FORMAL Marketplaces: Experiments with Urban Reconfiguration (nai010 publishers, 2023).

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