gallery-in-residence vol.2 - The Technological Unconscious

gallery-in-residence is a space provided to galleries, off spaces and independent curators to build up a show within Irmgard Lettner und Ernst Lembergers Wohn- und Atelierstipendium

Bernd Oppl
Julian Palacz
Norbert Unfug
Thomas Feuerstein
Judith Fegerl
Ines Hochgerner
Peter Moosgaard

curated by
Franziska Huemer-Fistelberger

The Technological Unconscious

Fundamentally, why should a machine be made to resemble or duplicate a human being? Is narcissism a necessary (psychic) condition for the development of technological prosthesis, as Marshall Mc Luhan once suggested?

Furthermore, does the logic of reciprocity compel human beings to imitate their machines just as much the machines are built to resemble them, keeping an infinite feedback loop of simulacra or doppelgänger in place?

If so, is there a psychic force that drives the feedback loop of human-machine-interchange even before the reverse engineering of the human brain becomes possible?
Finally, does this feedback loop obey a set of laws once speculated by Freud as the compulsion to repeat, the unconscious, the death drive, and so on?

– The Freudian Robot: Digital Media and the Future of the Unconscious
by Lydia H. Liu

Lydia H. Lius’ “Freudian Robot” embodies the unconscious of our posthuman social structures. We inhabit technological environments and develop subjective ties with and within technological apparatuses and systems. Techno-ecological interactions generate new patterns of behaviour and social codes. Which archetypical ideas and symbols, which psychological layers are attached to our relationships with technology? A “technological unconscious” as - at the same time - cause and effect of human-machine feedback-loops?

Lydia H. Lius? ?Freudian Robot? steht für das Unbewusste unserer posthumanen, sozialen Strukturen. Als Bewohner techologischer Umgebungen knüpfen wir subjektive Bande mit und innerhalb technologischer Apparaturen, die uns untereinander und mit sich verknüpfen. Techno-ökologische Wechselwirkungen und Durchdringungen erzeugen neue Verhaltens-Formen und gesellschaftliche Codes. Wie konstruieren wir für uns bedeutungsvolle Verbindungen mit und innerhalb unserer technogenisierten Umgebungen? Welche archetypischen Vorstellungen und Symbole, welche psychologischen Ebenen knüpfen sich daran? Ein technologisch Unbewusstes als Effekt und Ursache menschlich-maschineller Feedbackschleifen?