Metamatic Reloaded

The exhibition Metamatic Reloaded presents new art projects in dialogue withTinguely‘s drawing machines. The show is the result of an international call for entries issued by the Dutch Métamatic Research Initiative (MRI) in 2009. Artists were called on to tackle, from today’s perspective, the topic and concept of Jean Tinguely’s drawing machines, called Méta-Matics which are among his most important groups of work and inventions.

A total of ten newly created projects by internationally renowned and also young, up-and-coming artists, will be all together on show for the first time in Basel with works by: Marina Abramović, Ranjit Bhatnagar, John Bock, Olaf Breuning, Thomas Hirschhorn, Aleksandra Hirszfeld, Jon Kessler, Pors & Rao, João Simões and Brigitte Zieger.
All the ten projects are characterized by common underlying themes, such as interaction between man and machine, the overstrain people suffer due to permanent communication, or man’s connection with the world and his simultaneous regressive tie to his immediate surroundings. Tinguely’s Méta-Matics were shaped by a technological world; mechanics and electricity were decisive for his machine/man interaction devices, while electronics, computers and such intangible things as data clouds and the World Wide Web are decisive today.