Is the Internet and social media just trapping people in filter bubbles (the phenomenon of only being exposed to content that we like or that confirms what we already think)?
At the heart of this question is a widely shared observation: instead of promoting the exchange of diverse viewpoints and the development of nuanced theories —a utopia that inspired the democratization of the Internet in the 1990s— the rise of social media and recommendation algorithms has contributed to the radicalization of opinions and heightened tensions online. This phenomenon has created a chronically inability to listen to and respect different perspectives, effectively trapping individuals in their intellectual comfort zones.
What if art could play a role in raising awareness and become a powerful tool for initiating rich and nuanced dialogue? Art, with its ability to open new perspectives, can push us to think differently and step outside our preconceived notions.
What if new forms of artistic expression are emerging that provoke open discussions or experiences that challenge our beliefs?
In this context, Salon Souterrain, with its multidisciplinary approach where diverse perspectives are confronted, seeks to question our current approach to perception and expand the possibilities for understanding. Artists, thinkers, and participants come together to reflect on the art of breaking bubbles in a friendly and festive space.
Credits
artistic direction: Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe
discussion: Amani Abou Zahra (philosopher), Anesu Dzvuke (neurologist) more Guests tba
performance/installation: Marianna Areti Mondelos
performance/video: Bishop Black
performance/dance: Luca Bonamore, Sunny
music: Lena Fankhauser (viola), Rupert Huber (keyboards/electronics)
DJ: Worst Messiah aka Wisdom
team: Indra Jäger (production), Benoît Jouan (research), Lena Fankhauser (curator chamber/contemporary music), François Ntambue Tambwe (web) David Pujadas Bosch (documentation)
titelpic © Susanne Senekowitsch
Kindly supported by Stadt Wien MA7
Salon Souterrain by Dig Up Productions
In cooperation with WUK performing arts / Projektraum, Chateau Rouge.at, (CH)AMBER music
Thanks to AIL/Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab and God`s Entertainment
BIOS
Amani Abuzahra (philosopher/she/her)
Amani Abuzahra, who holds a doctorate in philosophy, is an author and public speaker and one of the best-known speakers on the topic of anti-Muslim racism in Austria. Whether on TV, at conferences, in her publications or in community work, her approach is to deconstruct prejudices and empower people. Her research and lecturing activities have taken her to the USA, Finland, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and the universities of Istanbul and Eskişehir, among others. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Sigmund Freud University in Vienna.
https://www.instagram.com/amaniabuzahra/?hl=fr
Anesu Dzvuke (neurologist/she/her)
Anesu Dzvuke is a resident doctor based in Vienna, Austria, who aims to specialize in the field of neuro-oncology. Born in 1994, Dzvuke grew up in Gaborone and Harare, before moving to Vienna and commencing her studies at the Medical University of Vienna. A doctor by day; a spoken word poet by night. Dzvuke shares a love for both the sciences and the arts, and has been performing in the Viennese poetry scene over the past several years. In her work, Dzvuke aims to highlight the intersectionality between art and science, and the way both mediums are utilized to describe the enigma that is our world and ultimately the human condition.
Lena Fankhauser (curator chamber and contemporary music / viola/she/her)
Lena Fankhauser is a violist of Trinidadian-Swiss heritage born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She started playing the violin at the age of 4. She has received both her Bachelor and Master’s degree from the Julliard School of Music in New York City on a full scholarship. Fankhauser has toured worldwide, across numerous genres, and played in many halls including New York’s Carnegie Hall, Suntory Hall in Tokyo and the Royal Albert Hall in London. As a passionate chamber musician, Lena Fankhauser founded a Chamber Music Festival in Bad Ischl and (CH)AMBER, an association for new chamber music. She is a founding member, contractor and manager of the film orchestra, Big Island Orchestra Vienna and a founding member and musical curator of Salon Souterrain.
https://www.lena-fankhauser.com
Rupert Huber (composer/he/him)
Rupert Huber is a composer, who is best known for his social music installations, his electronic music project TOSCA and his piano music. For Huber, music is communication and an active state of peace.
His music is characterized by its creative fusion of traditional and modern elements, appealing to a wide audience. His compositions often reflect deep contemplation on human experiences and the relationship with nature and deal with social polyphony: tonal sequences, melodies that become contrapuntal harmony movements when several individuals come together.
Huber’s innovative approaches and quest for new means of expression make him a significant figure in the contemporary music scene.
https://toscamusic.com/tosca-bio/
Marianna Areti Mondelos (performance/installation/she/her)
Marianna Mondelos creates artistic interventions through eating experiences. These temporal installations and performances are based on reshaping the perception and relationship with and around food, where social norms of sharing a meal and eating together are questioned.
http://marianna.mondelos.com
Bishop Black (performance/video/they/them)
Bishop Black (they/them) is a Black British porn performer, sex worker, theater performer, director and all-round charmer. They currently live in Berlin. Being in the adult industry for over 10 years, they have worked with some of the industry’s most provocative figures including Venice Biennale artist Shu Lea Cheang, directors Bruce LaBruce and Erika Lust. In their stage and screen performances Bishop regularly addresses themes of sexual fluidity and race using mythology, occultism, queerness and dance. They have just finished a theatre run of their first director debut at the Ballhaus Naunynstrasse in Berlin.
https://www.instagram.com/thebishopblack3000/reels/
Luca Bonamore (dance/performance/her/him)
Luca Bonamore is a Rome-born dancer, choreographer and performer who has lived in Vienna since 2007. He completed his studies in contemporary dance education at MUK Vienna in 2023. His most recent collaborations include Labor der Zärtlichkeit at brut Wien / imagetanz (2022), Lapse for the SPIT Festival at Tanzquartier Wien (2022) and I hear you. But don’t at Studio Hanniball Berlin (2022). Luca has performed in FUGUE FOUR : RESPONSE at Volkstheater Wien and showed his solo work Lamentations at Rakete Festival at Tanzquartier Wien (2023). Luca started his first performances in queer techno clubs under the name Pornamore. He is interested in glitter, wigs and the interface between different art forms.
Sunny (performance/she/her)
Sunny creates art that brings a feeling of self development and evaluation in one’s self. She shares her evolution of work by Exploring and playing with different Medians. Sunny started her journey with hair sculpting, creating a story through hair. Sunny now has evolved in her journey as a pole dancer and food fantasy performer. Creating new stores though movement and emotion.
https://www.instagram.com/sunny_jana?igsh=MWVlM2lhNm9kYm0yZw%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
DJ: Worst Messiah aka Wisdom (DJ/he/him)
Thomas Wisser, artist, author, rapper, DJ, host. Lives in Vienna. Plays rap, beats, obscurities, vinyl.
https://worstmessiah.bandcamp.com
VISUAL ART: Kristina Foggensteiner (painter/performer/she/her)
Kristina Foggensteiner studied metal design in Vienna (Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst) as an autodidact to the core, she produces in a range of genres and in series: graphic works with collaged elements, objects/comic objects, and paintings that then provide a backdrop for photographs. Foggensteiner is also well known as a singer and performer. The situations she creates — with paintings, photographs, performances and concerts — never fail to strive to describe her subject matter as accurately and as reliably as possible. She is not looking to appease and, quite frankly, her basic approach resonates with the politics of an E. Snowden, a Valentina Zharkova or Guy Debor — ostensible villains. While her work doesn’t need the long analyses, nor a meticulously arranged verisimilitude in the details or acts of extreme civil courage. Her work makes proactive free will palpable: In a wild array of clothes, authentic, moving images, insightful perspectives, the outstanding craftsmanship of a painter …far removed from any globalised gimmickry.
Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe (host/artistic direction/she/her)
Als Künstlerin, Choreografin und Regisseurin arbeitet Elisabeth B. Tambwe mit verschiedenen Formen und Genres: Performance, Choreografie, Film, interaktiv und generativ, sowie mit verschiedenen Dramaturgien und Räumen wie Installationen und Bühnen. Sie interessiert sich für das Auftauchen neuer Formen von Andersartigkeit und die einzigartigen Beziehungen und Sprachen, die sie hervorbringen. Was verraten sie über unser Menschsein, und wie fordern sie den Begriff des Anthropozentrismus heraus? Ihre Projekte sind transdisziplinär und kollektiv und versuchen, gemeinsame Forschungsräume zwischen Performance-Kunst und Sozialwissenschaften zu schaffen.
Indra Jäger (production)
Indra Jäger, geboren in Frankfurt am Main, lebt seit 2000 in Wien. Nach dem Studium der Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaften hat sie den Kunst- und Kulturverein IM ERSTEN mitinitiiert und geleitet (2012-16). In diesem Bereich arbeitet sie weiterhin als Produzentin für Dig Up Productions und ist verantwortlich für das diskursive Performanceformat „Salon Souterrain“ sowie „Speech of Love: Absence“ und ‚Beyond The Overflow‘. Seit 2023 ist Indra als Redakteurin und Chefin vom Dienst bei der österreichischen Lösungsjournalismus-Plattform relevant.news tätig, sowie als als freie wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Institut für vergleichende Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft (CMC) zu arbeiten.
Benoît Jouan (recherche)
Benoît Jouan ist ein Autor und Illustrator. Er studierte Bildende Kunst und hat einen Universitätsabschluss (Master of Visual and Plastic Arts/ Universität Lille III, Frankreich) und ein Kunsthochschuldiplom (National Superior Diploma of Expression of Plastic Arts-DNSEP & National Diploma of Plastic Arts-DNAP of the School of Tourcoing, Frankreich). Er arbeitete zwanzig Jahre lang (1999-2019) am Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art (LaM) in Villeneuve-d’Ascq (Frankreich) als Dozent und Leiter von Kunstworkshops (spezialisiert auf Gravur) in geschlossenen Räumen wie psychiatrischen Krankenhäusern und Gefängnissen. Seit 1998 arbeitet er mit Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe zusammen. Seit 2022 lebt und arbeitet er in Wien.
Lena Fankhauser (curator chamber and contemporary music)
Lena Fankhauser ist eine Bratschistin trinidadisch-schweizerischer Herkunft, die in Montreal, Quebec, Kanada, geboren wurde. Sie begann im Alter von 4 Jahren mit dem Geigenspiel und erhielt sowohl ihren Bachelor- als auch ihren Master-Abschluss von der Julliard School of Music in New York City mit einem Vollstipendium. Lena Fankhauser ist weltweit auf Tournee gegangen und hat in vielen Sälen gespielt, darunter die Carnegie Hall in New York, die Suntory Hall in Tokio und die Royal Albert Hall in London. Als leidenschaftliche Kammermusikerin gründete Lena Fankhauser ein Kammermusikfestival in Bad Ischl und (CH)AMBER, einen Verein für neue Kammermusik. Sie ist Gründungsmitglied, Auftraggeberin und Managerin des Filmorchesters Big Island Orchestra Vienna und Gründungsmitglied und musikalische Kuratorin des Salon Souterrains
https://www.lena-fankhauser.com
David Pujadas Bosch (documentation)
David Pujadas Bosch geboren in Barcelona, lebt seit 2000 in Wien. 2000-2013 bei IBM Österreich in verschiedenen Bereichen tätig (u.a. Announcement Support Advisor, Quality Coordinator, Country Focal Point) 2003-2013 Studium an der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien bei Monica Bonvicini (Skulptur und performative Kunst) und Harun Farocki (Film und Kunst). Seit 2013 in der Filmklasse von Thomas Heise. Arbeitet hauptsächlich mit Video und Film, beschäftigt sich aber auch mit Fotografie, Zeichnung, Schreiben und macht Performances und Klanginstallationen. Von 2009 bis 2016 regelmäßiger Illustrator, Autor und Buchhalter für Paradigmata – Zeitschrift für Mensch und Diskurs – neben anderen redaktionellen Tätigkeiten wie Layout, Redaktion und Vertrieb.
https://davidpujadasbosch.wordpress.com