CODES of ABSENCE | presentation and exhibition | Korčula [HR]
24 September 2026
Location : Centar za kulturu Korčula | Korčula Cultural Centre Obala korčulanskih brodograditelja bb, 20260 Korčula [HR]
ARTISTS:
Aiko Kazuko Kurosaki • Kerstin Bennier • Christoph Theiler
Opening with Darko Fritz and Thomas J. Jelinek
In cooperation with siva) (zona / gray) (area [HR]
FLUVIALE 2026 ALONG the LINE
PROGRAM:
6 PM / 18:00 MISU – intervention in public space by AIKO | in the historic town of Korčula
9 PM / 21:00 Closing performance – MISU by Aiko Kazuko Kurosaki / In front of the Korčula Cultural Centre (at the harbour)
9:15 PM / 21:15 Opening of CODES of ABSENCE / FLUVIALE temporal by Darko Fritz and Thomas J. Jelinek
9:30 PM / 21:30 Film screening: “FLUVIALE – ALONG the LINE” – Documentary by Thomas J. Jelinek / 35 minutes
Exhibition: Kerstin Bennier – Installation ‘I was there and did nothing’
Christoph Theiler – Media installation ‘Talking Transmitter – FSK Frequency Shift Keying’
‘Talking Transmitter – FSK Frequency Shift Keying’ – Chrsitoph Theiler | photo: R. Putenau
CODES of ABSENCE
Codes form the basis of our perception.
Essentially, we use them to define our worldview and our reality.
We encode our sensory impressions in order to orient ourselves and to
perceive and navigate our ‘environment’ – our world – to communicate within it and to survive.
We are currently experiencing the greatest crisis and most radical transformation of our existence
in the known history of humankind.
Essentially, this upheaval can be viewed as a process of recoding.
This means that old codes lose their context and new ones are generated.
But when codes lose their meaning – that is, when what they refer to no longer exists – they become empty signs of the absent.
In our present, where practically all parameters of our reality and our lives – in both an existential and an everyday sense –
are changing, being rewritten and reinterpreted, the processes of loss of meaning and disorientation are perceptible on a daily basis.
Alongside the dramatic changes in climate trends and biodiversity, etc., there is a consequent exponential increase in social devastation,
potential for conflict and violence – even wars – on the one hand, and, on the other, a tendency to abstraction of life
and living concepts within an algorithmic bubble in a world built on purely virtual realities,
in which the codes no longer refer to any physical states or processes, but only to themselves.
Set against this are physical realities such as the chemical compound H₂O
which humanity has, for millennia, coded as the ‘element’ water – without which we cannot exist,
as we ourselves consist largely of it.
The performance MISU (Japanese for ‘raw’ water) addresses our fundamental interconnectedness with the context
of the planet’s biosphere and thereby also physically brings to the fore the catastrophic economic
and political missteps of the present day – water scarcity with all its climatological and social consequences.
Through the staging of the ritual elevation of water, the fatal trend towards the loss of the codes of human contextualisation
– which includes an appreciation of water – is painfully contrasted in the public space,
where most people walk past without a second thought.
This dance performance – MISU – by Aiko Kazuko Kurosaki, takes place in public spaces throughout the town and has its final part in front of the Korčula Cultural Centre as a prelude to the exhibition.
Thomas J. Jelinek
The evening’s programme then features the film screening – ALONG the LINE – the documentary film and video work by director Thomas J. Jelinek,
and the exhibition of the video installation and works by the Austrian artists Kerstin Bennier and Christoph Theiler
on the codes of the present and absent things –
featuring a neon sign installation by Kerstin Bennier
and the oscillating transmitters by Christoph Theiler – radio sculptures that now transmit nothing but interference.
