PERFORMANCE

The installation provides the framework of a techno-social machine that feeds on previously supplied data and the bodies present in the audience—an unpredictable constellation of partly human, partly machinic actions, articulations, and rituals. The witch at the centre of the installation, performances, and gatherings is one of the multiple fictional identities and hysterically subversive drag characters in the world of artist Johannes Paul Raether. The witch Protektorama rose to fame with her appearance in the Apple flagship store in Berlin on July 9, 2016. The ensuing police intervention on Kurfürstendamm was owed not least to the metal gallium she liquified during the performance. The witch wands in the installation serve as ritual objects to exorcise the smartphone fetishism.

By Johannes Paul Raether

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