Herwig Egon Casadoro-Kopp (HECK) is a transdisciplinary media artist, writer and musician based in Vienna, Berlin and Venice. In his work he explores memory, storytelling and commercialisation in contemporary art, labour and politics, often in the form of affirmative critique....
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Herwig Egon Casadoro-Kopp (HECK) is a transdisciplinary media artist, writer and musician based in Vienna, Berlin and Venice. In his work he explores memory, storytelling and commercialisation in contemporary art, labour and politics, often in the form of affirmative critique. As a former brain researcher he uses the grey zones in between art & science to thematise the influence of belief systems in our society of brains, challenging what is socially considered “normal” in repetitions, appropriations and seeking out the hidden affirmations, thus uncovering them. When HECK turns our view towards an inclusion of the negated as an affirmative-critical act, automatic aesthetic assumptions may begin to shift. Like the institutional critique of Andrea Fraser or Marcel Broodthaers, he uses strategies of irony, subversion and hyperaffirmation which include (affirm) the criticised (negated) – therefore consciously presenting what one would reject for aesthetic, political or other reasons.
His works have been shown in wide range of contexts like Einstein Forum (Potsdam), Wittgenstein Haus (Vienna), Computerspielemuseum (Berlin), Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina (Novi Sad), WUK (Vienna), HAU Theater (Berlin), Mess Hall (Chicago), Gallery Sala Terrana (Vienna), Mass MoCA (Massachusetts), Austrian Cultural Forum (New York) etc.
He has given lectures at institutions such as Harvard Univ. (Boston), Torino Filmlab (Italy), Peking University (China), Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts (Sweden), Russian Documentary Guild, Tamkang Univ.(Taipei, Taiwan), Karlovy Vary Filmfestival, Sustainable Neighbours Network (Senegal), Solmukohta (Finland), University of Applied Arts (Vienna) etc.