THEHOST.IS/HYPHENLABS:
ANYTHING TO DECLARE?

What is a border? What defines a threshold? How do these man-made lines bend, mutate, contain, and eject? Where are the outlines porous, and where do they leak?

The second season of the artistic residency program THEHOST.IS, launched by Deichtorhallen Hamburg and Kampnagel, focuses on "borders" and the concept of freedom of the invited artists. The artistic direction of the season is taken over by the art and design duo Hyphen-Labs (London, Vancouver and San Francisco), consisting of Ece Tankal and Carmen Aguilar y Wedge. At the intersection of technology, art and science, Hyphen-Labs explore the relationships between digital platforms and the physical world, and how art can be used as a tool of intervention and immersion.

The final exhibition will showcase the projects of resident artists Liva Dudareva, Jazmin Morris, and Pablo Somonte Ruano from December 16, 2022 to January 15, 2023 at the Auditorium of Deichtorhallen Hamburg.

In her project I (will) destroy(ed) you...to protect you, Liva Dudareva (b. 1984, Latvia) will explore the interconnectedness between the emergence of ecosystem ecology and the nuclear weapons testing that took place in the United States between 1945 and 1992. Based on the idea of how borders are constructed, by whom and for whom, a digital atlas designed by the artist and specially made ceramic objects will question the borders drawn by humans between different territories.

The project Don't touch my hardware by Jazmin Morris (*1997, England) is an exploration of the boundaries between software, hardware and the human body. As modern product design becomes increasingly minimalist and streamlined, this project pays tribute to the Barbie televisions and Hot Wheels computers of the 1990s and creatively questions how hardware can enhance our relationship with modern technology. For her project, Jazmin draws inspiration from alternative game controllers and hardware, and will blur the lines between game design, product design, and web design.

Pablo Somonte Ruano's (b. 1992, Mexico) project POCAS (POCAS Organización Cooperativa de Auto-Servicio) will design a fictional chain of self-service stores set in an alternative present in Mexico City. POCAS explores the intersections of software, mutualism, commons, counter-economics, agorism, platform cooperativism, and cybernetics. POCAS subverts the capitalist-neoliberal logic of these self-service stores with mutualist logic, designing a new form of post-capitalist store.

THEHOST.IS is being created as part of the joint project "Diversify the Code", which is funded by the Kultur Digital program of the German Federal Cultural Foundation.