Artists

Veneta Androva
Raphael Bastide
Bruno Gola
Kathrin Hunze
Yehwan Song
Shinji Toya

Veneta Androva
HOTSPOT
Video

Art Swap with Kathrin Hunze

Kathrin Hunze chose to swap old audio and video files in which she played with different kinds of materials such as paper or balloons. The audio and the images are so abstract that the objects are no longer recognizable. The pink, almost flesh-coloured look of the video became a springboard for Veneta Androva’s narrative about the inner workings of a ‘zombie server’.

To start with, Androva researched data centres and their impact on the environment. According to one study, up to 30 per cent of all servers operate as zombie servers, meaning they only stand by idle as a backup. Yet their energy consumption is significant. In HOTSPOT, Androva takes us into the hidden world of data centres like these — places that are often invisible to us. Predominantly run by male employees, the work culture in these centres has its own gender-specific jargon. The voice of the employer in the video expresses his idea of a female server that needs to be taken care of. In ambiguous language, mixing technical terminology with human greetings, the machine takes on a life of its own – until its warranty expires and it is instantly and unkindly disposed of.

Veneta Androva is a media artist based in Berlin. In her practice, she combines archival and documentary material with painting and develops animations and computer-generated environments. Her work takes a critical look at social power structures from an intersectional feminist perspective and addresses questions about technology, media and gender in speculative narrative forms.