Thank you so much for joining me.
The term underground network seems to be a central element of what you are trying to build with your project. Could you flesh out the term a little bit? In particular, the significance of the term underground?
Séverin: So I would say it’s kind of a common reflection between the theme of the Edgelands or Matza Edgelands project and what we’ve been experimenting with in the past in Geneva.
I come from some other underground culture, so I met many people coming from this minority somewhere in Geneva. And since we went through the COVID time here, we discovered that there’s, in fact, lots of people being part of the city, but people we don’t pay attention to. People coming from abroad, people coming from different minorities.
And we say with Anja, okay, if we go through social contract issues, some order would be interesting to go a bit deeper in what’s going on in the city and try to reveal what we cannot see. So the underground part of the city.
The term AI is on everyone’s lips these days. There are algorithms now that can create graphic works in almost any style. Do you think that there are any tensions between artistic creativity and AI and also digitalization as a whole?
Anja: Yeah. I can start. But it’s interesting to have your perspective on that. Of course there is. I mean, digital is like all new tools. There are always challenges, and there are always huge new opportunities.
And it’s not different in the topic that we are analyzing here, where we try to see how does our digital world and to curiosity that it’s become such a big issue everywhere, not just in some countries, but really everywhere. What is the impact of that on different people?
And here we try to see what is the impact on these groups that are maybe a little bit underground, for whom sometimes digital can be a way to create a safe space, and sometimes it’s also a surveillance issue.
And in the artistic field, of course, AI as well, will be integrated by some artists, not by others. I think at the moment, there is kind of an overhype where people are fascinated, but that will also go a little bit away, but doesn’t mean that AI will go away at all.
It’s just the total hype. And then we will have interesting and useful integrations of that in all the fields, maybe from your point of view.
Séverin: Yeah, as an artist, as a curator, I’m not really into AI.
So I’m not a geek, I’m not a specialist, I’m not a nerd exact. But I think AI goes with some really deep ethical issues question. And I think these issues are so complex, so much related to the world society, that there’s not only scientists or policymakers able to answer these issues.
It’s important to involve all the community into this reflection. So this is a bit what we try to do with Matsa, gathering some artists. Some of the artists from this exhibition comes from the AI net or interest or field somehow, some other, not at all.
But then it start to be interesting when you get different communities or different artists coming with different interests that start to and perspective to share together about what AI means and what is the future we want together. Does it go through AI or not? Or can we somehow as well consider AI as a tool, which is the real issue for about AI. The goal is really, how can we live together? What does that mean for our social contract so we can feel safe and be free and thrive?
Fantastic. So you’ve been to Medellin, Cucuta and more recently, Nairobi. What makes this exhibition in Geneva different? Is there anything that stands out?
Anja: The main topic is always the same, so it’s really security, digitalization.
What does that mean today for a community? How should we adapt our way to live together or social contract how Russo would put it? And then in every city we choose a specific topic. In Medellin, in Colombia, for example, it was common ground.
How can we find that common ground to understand each other and to rather create trust than digital massive surveillance. And in Nairobi, it was digital informalities, as a lot of the economy is informal or informal settlements.
What does that mean? in terms of security, in terms of belonging and living together. And here in Geneva, it is a very rich city in Switzerland. It’s rich. There is the UN. It’s glossy, it’s nice.
And we wanted a little bit, see a little bit, how do you say, dig, scratch the surface and see what is behind, what is under it. And I think COVID also showed that when we saw with COVID like 4000 people standing for 4 hours or 3 hours to get some food for 25 francs, I think most of us were not aware of that.
Geneva, that is really part of it and that it’s not so visible. So we wanted to see these minorities, these groups, and see what is the impact of digital on them. Is it a way for emancipation and resilience or is it a threat?
And at the public discussion last week with artists and migrants, some of the participants expressed their difficulties, as you just mentioned, with living here and being a migrant. What do you think is perhaps needed to create this social change that could change lives? Or is that still up for discussion amongst this collective?
Anja: Maybe, One of the experts that came here and discussed with the artist told us he’s an urban sociologist and he said that the whole system of integration is based on immigration of the 20th century.
He himself comes from an Italian family. So Switzerland needed people to work. Italians came, they integrated here and they retired here. They did it their whole lives. So the tools are for. Trajectories and he said that today it’s very different.
People come and then they leave again. Then there are refugees, maybe they are legal and then there may be legal later on. It’s not so linear anymore and probably the public policies have not adapted to that yet.
It’s not so easy. So I think probably at the moment there is more of an awareness, an understanding phase and hopefully it will be followed by new public policies that really adapt to the changing needs of these populations.
And lastly, with this collective space here being temporary, what permanence would you like there to be after the exhibition?
Séverin: Well, the statement of Matza is being nomadic and being ephemeral.
So we do believe that we consider arts as a kind of ongoing, permanent process of reflection of production. So this is like it can mean also some frustration somehow because we know that there is a hand.
But at the same time this is the way that we try to do. We build networks, we build friendships between people. So it means that for most of the time artists stay connected. What we try to do, having artists coming from different cities we are going to work with or we’ve been working with, it means we set some link in between these cities.
And I would say that what I observed in the past is that there’s also many artists just needing some more time to digest the whole experience. So they go back home in their country and maybe one or two or three years later. They’re going to make, like a solo show about what they’ve been experimenting in a matza session experience. And this is something that really touches us because it means that you never know where you go.
But this is somehow the fact that we don’t expect anything from the artist except being committed. It in this collective experimentation. These are things that may have some positive consequences but not obligatory during the exhibition, but maybe like one or two years later.
Anja: Yeah, I would say coming with questions and not with answers. And we leave with more questions that we had in the beginning, planting seeds of how we can work together, how bringing people and ideas together and not being attached to the results, not having expectations and then being I think that’s.
Séverin: And really making things easy through true and really closely reflected with the inhabitants. So it’s not making 40 arts or 40 art worlds, but it’s making out because it makes sense for the whole community.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you.
Here are a links to Matza’s website and more on Matza Edgelands projects.
This was the last episode of the series but you can always listen back to the other episodes to hear the artists and their many perspectives on art, digitalisation, security and community.