On Realms of Speculative Future and Alternate History

Joscha Steffens creates work about - and within - hidden communities that immerse themselves in an imaginary world. He mainly focuses on the game world - both virtual and live-action - and on the violence that is aestheticised in it. In his artistic research he tries to approach these communities and their members as open-minded as possible, even if some of their worlds are ruled by absurd ideals that build the game narrative and virtual identity while manipulating history and memory to dangerous degrees. The focus of his work lies especially on those forms of gaming that require their members to immerse themselves completely in the skin of their avatar and transcend the limits of play. 

Joscha Steffens graduated from Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst (HGB) in Leipzig and completed the post graduate program of Kunsthochschule für Medien (KHM) in Cologne. He was resident at Rijksakademie van beeldende Kunsten in 2017 and 2017, and appointed AIR Fellow of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in the Research Group of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS/KNAW). 

www.joschasteffens.de

Olúwábùnmi Bernard holds a Ph.D. in Yoruba Language and Literature from Obafemi Awolowo University. Her research interest includes Yoruba literature, gender and sexuality, postcolonial, and environmental studies. She is currently a fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. During her fellowship, she is developing her monograph on environmental rights in Yoruba.

Annie Goodner is a writer, critic and educator living in Amsterdam. She teaches art theory and writing at the University of the Arts, Arnhem, and is the co-founder of Tangents, a new online art criticism platform focused on writing within and about the Dutch scene. Her criticism has appeared in Mousse, e-flux education, and Artforum. From 2016-2022, she ran How To Show Up? (HTSU), which commissioned new work at the intersection of performance and writing by Sophie Collins, Huw Lemmey, Ghislaine Leung, Becket MWN, Hannah Regel, Holly White, Angharad Williams, among others. 

This film presentation is organised with the support of NIAS - The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences