Iconoclash: Slow Squeeze. In conversation with Carolyn Kirschner

Interview on the outcomes of a project commissioned by and initiated during a residency at ZKM Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe (2022).

The project, titled ‘Iconoclash: Slow Squeeze’, experiments with the mechanisms of ASMR to create embodied experiences of inanimate objects and cultural artifacts. The outcome is a looping, 15 minute audio-visual experience, which was exhibited at ZKM (2022-23) as part of ‘Matter. Non-Matter. Anti-Matter.’ and will soon be shown at the Museum of Modern Art Medellin (2025).

“Through the incorporation of well-known modernist artworks, such as works by Joseph Beuys or Gordon Matta-Clark, their recontextualization and simultaneous transfer into another material form, Kirschner questions the connection between art, fetish, pleasure, and experience. The deconstruction of the iconic forms of these artworks – and their illustrious metamorphosis – addresses both other senses and habitual stimuli. The associated questions about the relationship between materiality, representation, and physical stimulation can also open up a new understanding regarding the mediation of both immaterial knowledge and material things. The project was developed within the framework of the Beyond Matter Residency Program.” – Text by ZKM Karlsruhe.

The interview is published as part of a research volume which summarises the various outcomes of ZKM’s four-year ‘Beyond Matter’ research programme – an international, collaborative, practice-based research project dedicated to exploring new possibilities for immersive technologies in the art world. ‘Beyond Matter’ was co-funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union and German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.