host_age ://

Curation: Deniz Güvensoy
Artists: Žarko Aleksić, Laurus Edelbacher, Azalea Ortega Flores

host_age:// is a research project that explores the increasing prioritization of security and control over freedom, free will, privacy, and democracy. The title is a play on words, suggesting that the host/hostage relationship defines contemporary political space, which is governed by two overlapping world orders: the digital and the territorial. In that sense, the host might represent either an online platform, a server, the State, or the citizen. And the hostage is the online user, or the resident of any territory.
The terms host, hostage, ghost, and guest share common etymological origins and are conceptually linked within the framework of hospitality, which, as Derrida argues, can only be performed through its transformation into hostility. Hospitality and hostility are co-dependent because the guest is subject to the host’s authority.
In certain cases, the tables are turned. Sometimes the guest, and sometimes even the host, becomes a hostage. The figure of the hostage reflects the logic of a post-control society, in which individuals are no longer disciplined only by physical borders but by their seemingly “free choices”. A host is likewise a computer accessible over a network. The title’s coded form evokes this digital reference, extending the topic into the digital realm. It suggests that we are living in the age of host/hostage dynamics, where we feel trapped within systems. Exploitation of personal data, manufacturing consent and political polarization through algorithmic tools, and AI technologies replacing human labor and creativity all illustrate how we are voluntarily held hostage by certain ideological, economic, and technological structures.
The exhibition brings together three artists who examine the intersection of surveillance, affective and cognitive capitalism, and the politics of space. Žarko Aleksić investigates the structure of human consciousness through neuroscientific methodologies. In his Regime of Dreams, he examines how media, as a propaganda device, shape our subconscious. Similarly, Brian Web, a project by Laurus Edelbacher and Azalea Ortega Flores, investigates the digital realm’s impact on affects and emotions. Users’ brain activity is measured by an EEG headset, and a custom-built system interprets these signals to curate web content based on the user’s cognitive-emotional state. In another work, Borderline, Edelbacher reconstructs border zones from various locations as interactive 3D environments in a game engine. Merging recorded footage from surveillance cameras with fantasy in a gaming atmosphere, it alludes to the new world order (‘the New Nomos’ in Bratton’s terms) established by increasingly decentralized and digitalized border technologies and power driven tech-corporations.
*Brainweb is supported by Bildrecht.

BRAIN WEB
Neuro-art installation
2025
Azalea Ortega Flores, Laurus Edelbacher

Brain Web, a neuro-art installation, allows its users to navigate the internet with their mental and emotional states. While using an EEG headset, an AI system translates the user’s mental values into search queries, turning each session into a personalized journey through the web and creating a feedback loop between participant state and content. The brainwaves are simultaneously displayed, generating awareness of stress/attention and meditation/relaxation levels in real time. At the end of the session, the user receives a ticket with a summary of the experience: a list of the navigated sites, information about their mental state, and personalized AI-generated advice. All empirical data is stored anonymously for artistic research.
https://www.brainweb.me

BORDERLINE
Interactive game installation
Laurus Edelbacher
2021

The work Borderline is centered around the topic of national borders fortified with diverse barriers and surveillance systems, which are intended to make their crossing more difficult when not impossible. Via a virtual array of surveillance monitors, six screens display selected sections of such border zones around the world. Using reference images from the internet, these real border zones are reconstructed as interactive 3D environments in a game engine. Users can manually control the individual surveillance cameras with the camera interface and explore the 3D environments. They can also expose set trigger points in the different border zones with a cross-hair pointer and thereby deconstruct the surveillance system and make the individual surveillance cameras crash.
https://borderline.laurusedelbacher.com

REGIME OF DREAMS
Artists: Žarko Aleksić
Multimedia Installation (Video-installation, Photography, Hospital
Trolley Bed), 2020, Dimensions Variable

Curator:
Deniz Güvensoy
Deniz Güvensoy is an artist, curator, and cultural researcher. She received her Doctorate in Fine Arts degree from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul and her Doctorate of Philosophy Degree from the University of Applied Arts Vienna. In her artistic practice, she employs various techniques such as performance, painting, collage, photography, digital printing, and installation. Her research often addresses migration, border theory and performativity. In her curatorial approach she brings together the topics of migration, collective practices, participatory and socially engaged art, and intersectional feminism.

Featuring:
Azalea Ortega Flores
Website • Social Media

M.A. Azalea Ortega Flores is a Mexican interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker and
former architecture student. She specializes in immersive installations that are
often site-specific. Her internationally exhibited works explore themes such as
neurology, psychology, well-being, nature and spirituality.

Laurus Edelbacher
Website • Social Media

Laurus Edelbacher, 1990 geboren in Melk (NÖ), absolvierte zunächst die Fachschule für Bildhauerei in Hallstatt und vollendete darauf folgend ein Studium an der Wiener Kunstschule bei Michael Kargl und Christoph Nebel in der Interdisziplinären Medienklasse. Anschließend schloss er mit ausgezeichnetem Erfolg ein Diplomstudium an der Universität für Angewandte Kunst Wien in der Klasse für Digitale Kunst bei Ruth Schnell ab. Laurus Edelbacher lebt und arbeitet in Wien / WWW. Er ist Mitglied im Kunst- und Kulturverein Fabrikraum und ist Teil des Künstlerduos “Rainbow Team” mit der Medienkünstlerin Anna Watzinger. Seine Werke wurden national wie international präsentiert und bewegen sich zwischen Browserfenster, Ausstellungsraum und künstlerischer Forschung.

Žarko Aleksić
Website

Žarko Aleksić wurde in Knjaževac, Serbien geboren. Er studierte Philosophie an der Universität Belgrad und Kunst und Fotografie an der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien.
Seine multidisziplinäre künstlerische Praxis basiert auf der Untersuchung des Bewusstseins, mentaler Verarbeitung und AI in Bezug auf gesellschaftspolitische Fragen des kognitiven Kapitalismus . Unter Berücksichtigung neurobiologischer und kognitiver Neurowissenschaften befasst sich seine Praxis mit individueller Phänomenologie durch die Untersuchung von Geisteszuständen. Fragen des Geistes/Hirns und seiner Prozesse, seiner Struktur und seiner Eigenschaften werden in der methodischen Aneignung von Wissen aus dem Bereich der Philosophie und der kognitiven Neurowissenschaften herausgearbeitet, wobei Wahrnehmung, Vorstellungskraft, Sprache, Gedächtnis, Aufmerksamkeit, Argumentation und Emotion innerhalb des Nervensystems hinterfragt werden. Die Beziehung zwischen diesen Ansätzen spiegelt sich in der Vernetzung zwischen psychologischen und ökonomischen Zuständen mit Synapsen als Hauptwährung wider. Žarko Aleksić stellte auf zahlreichen Einzel- und Gruppenausstellungen im In- und Ausland aus.