[RE]CLAIMED ARTSPACE - Contemporary Art Project

3 artists from Zwolle NL, undercover as artistic wolf in commercial sheep’s clothing.

[RE]CLAMED ARTSPACE - De filosofische betekenis van het project. — [RE]CLAIMED ARTSPACE – -English version – **click on image or here.**

03-01-2023- THIS IS ACTUALLY ART. The (RE)CLAIMED ARTSPACE project started a year ago and is literally about recapturing art in public space.

With this project, artists; Marit Otto, , Corine Aalvanger and Herbert Alfonso question the position of the visual arts in a world literally flooded with physical and digital images, personal branding, infotainment and commercial companies suddenly popping up in all kinds of timelines…. All conceived and created for quick image consumption.

They wonder if this like factory, has become a hostile environment for more complex imagery?

Online, there seems to be almost no room for second-guessing, and no deeper layer. Images must be instantly understood and trigger action. Visual art seems at odds with this with images that demand attention to be understood or appreciated.

With this project, Marit, Corine and Herbert cast a glance into a (dystopian) future and, en passant, address various ethical questions.

They crawled into the skin of 3 (actually 4) fictional companies and hid a socially critical message in an advertising message, art disguised as advertising.

I.G.C.Industries starups - BLOOD SWEAT TEARS- KRACHT.VOER.- INPHONE — I.G.C.Industries starups – BLOOD SWEAT TEARS- KRACHT.VOER.- INPHONE

The commercial sheep’s clothing. I.G.C. INDUSTRIES and the three startups with their signature products have sprung from the minds of the 3 artists. I.G.C.(In God’s Chair) Industries is the so-called investor, and the platform where the 3 companies raise their profile with their product. It is a company that balances on the edge of propriety and quite violates ethics with some regularity. The board members and CEOs, Marcha Suikerberg, Sandra Jobse Sander Pichai and Tim Kok, bear names referring to top Silicon Valley executives. Here you can pay with your data under the slogan ‘Data is the new currency’, a new economic philosophy that they themselves say is diametrically opposed to data protectionism.

With the platform I.G.C. Industries- the so-called - Start Up- investor- they question the behavior of companies acting purely for profit, profit and power before people and planet.

I.G.C. also mirrors and reflects our own behavior- how ethical are we when purchasing products?

INPHONE, is een concept van Marit Otto: deze dubieuze Phone company zoekt de grenzen van privacy, algoritmes en leeftijdsbeperking op. INPHONE dient primair zichzelf, daarna de consument maar zeker niet de ethiek en het fatsoen. Gratis voor altijd verbonden en altijd online in ruil voor onbeperkt toegang tot jouw gegevens. Toekomstdenken avant la lettré.

KRACHT.VOER, is een concept van Corine Aalvanger: zij speelt met haar CCP3 food pil fijntjes in op de snelle markt van maaltijd – flits bezorging, een festival gevoel is nooit ver weg. De vleespil is er in drie dierlijke variaties: de kip, het varken en de koe. Just pop it in! Een magisch idee voor als het eten, an sich, je gewoon te veel wordt….

SWEATSHOP COUTURE, een concept van Herbert Alfonso: hij profileert zich met het product Blood Sweat Tears als vrij bloederig, best onethisch en onsmakelijk maar wel de weg naar succes als je dit bedrijf mag geloven. Een cult hit uit de States met als slogan ‘We don’t talk about other people’s blood sweat and tears, we just use them’.

[RE]CLAMED ARTSPACE -concepten- producten : INPHONE- BLOOD SWEAT TEARS- KRACHT.VOER.

“With this socially engaged project, we want to make an artistic and philosophical contribution to this rapidly changing society. In this project, the relationship between commercial and autonomous visual language is at odds. We want to investigate how these extremes that have a lot in common relate to each other, also questioning the audience’s viewing habits with regard to visual art. Does art lose out among all this visual violence or does it remain (gladly) seen?” said Marit, Corine and Herbert.

|RE|CLAIMED ARTSPACE manifests itself everywhere but especially in Zwolle. The project manifests itself online via its website: https://igcindustries.nl/ and under the name IGC.industriesofficial on Instagram, and as Marcha Suikerberg (CEO) Twitter and Linkedin.

[RE]CLAMED ARTSPACE – de sociale platforms. *click on photo for video*

According to the artists, this makes them part of a global village online, but as artists living and/or working in Zwolle, they also want to engage in a visual dialogue with the Zwolle audience. They did this by distributing the product posters and the publication at various Zwolle locations but also by folding the online communication more and more towards Zwolle. “It was no easy task, despite the sometimes disturbing content of the posts, to elicit neither positive nor negative reactions from the public” they note in retrospect.

Publication and manifesto. In December 2022, the publication will be issued. under the name |RE|CLAIMED ARTSPACE, which will also be distributed exclusively in Zwolle (2000 copies). In this publication you will find, among other things, as a centrefold, a manifesto in which Marit, Corine and Herbert engage with their thesis and they also elaborate on the social impact they believe commercial imagery has on the viewer in a reflective piece.