Plattform: Technic and Magic by Frederico Campagna
14:00
Frederico Campagna’s introductory online lecture to his work Technic and Magic – The Reconstruction of Reality (2018) accompanies Damla Kilickiran’s exhibition Twine an image that is yet to be at Bergen Kunsthall.
“We take for granted that only certain kind of things exist – electrons but not angels, passports but not nymphs. This is what we understand as reality. But in fact, reality varies with each era of the world, in turn shaping the field of what is possible to do, think and imagine. Our contemporary age has embraced a troubling and painful form of reality: Technic.
Under Technic, the foundations of reality begin to crumble, shrinking the field of the possible and freezing our lives in an anguished state of paralysis. Technic and Magic shows that the way out of the present deadlock lies much deeper than debates on politics or economics. By drawing from an array of Northern and Southern sources – spanning from Heidegger, Junger and Stirner's philosophies, through Pessoa's poetry, to Advaita Vedanta, Bhartrhari, Ibn Arabi, Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra's theosophies – Magic is presented as an alternative system of reality to Technic. While Technic attempts to capture the world through an absolute language, Magic centres its reconstruction of the world around the notion of the ineffable that lies at the heart of existence.”
Federico Campagna is a philosopher and writer. In 2009 he started a long-term collaboration with the Italian Autonomia philosopher Franco Berardi Bifo. In that same year, he co-founded the (now defunct) multilingual platform for critical theory Through Europe. He has a PhD from the Royal College of Art, London, with a thesis on Metaphysics and Metaethics in the Design of Strategy Video Games; he has an MSc and a BSc in Economics and Management of the Arts from Bocconi University, Milan, and an MA in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths University, London.
Plattform
Plattform is Bergen Kunsthall’s series of lectures and debates with artists and prominent thinkers. This season we present talks and conversations that expand on the ideas of our summer exhibitions with Lene Berg and Damla Kilickiran, and Cruising Utopia – the first live project of 2022. The talks will dive into central themes of Lene Berg’s work: memory, storytelling and working at the intersection of visual arts and film. Italian philosopher Federico Campagna’s contemporary take on the reconstruction of realities has been a strong inspiration for Oslo-based artist Damla Kilickiran.
