You Know What You Know

Jan 19–31, 2024
Space 776, New York

The two-site exhibition You Know What You Know, presented in collaboration between Space 776 and KUNSTRAUM, explores the profound connection between five women artists and their embodied knowledge. It opens a visual journey through thoughtfully constructed environments where emotional architecture, tactile experience, and performative engagement intersect. The exhibition highlights how personal histories and intuitive intelligence shape artistic practice across generations and disciplines.

You Know What You Know features works by Tatiana Arocha, Jaynie Crimmins, Amanda Konishi, Saskia Krafft, and Nadja Verena Marcin. The exhibition unfolds within a broader social dialogue on gender, ecology, and technological transformation. The artists employ a wide range of media, including aluminum, gold leaf on canvas, hand-crafted paper, ceramics, textiles, and digital interactive platforms. Through these diverse approaches, the show constructs a dialogue between materiality, intuition, and knowledge.

At Space 776, Nadja Verena Marcin presents her interactive work #SOPHYGRAY, an artificial-intelligence-driven feminist bot. Developed through extensive research into gendered technologies such as Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Ms. Dewey, and Hanson Robotics’ Sophia, #SOPHYGRAY offers a space for dialogue infused with humor, intellect, and critical inquiry. Unlike male-coded AI assistants, Marcin’s bot articulates a self-aware, feminist voice informed by numerous feminist theoretical works. Visitors are invited to engage with #SOPHYGRAY by asking questions. SOPHY responds with topics surrounding art, feminism, identity, and social issues—transforming passive spectatorship into active exchange.

At KUNSTRAUM, Marcin complements this installation with a video work documenting a performance at the WRO 2023 Biennale. This work translates the digital into a physical live experience, featuring two dancers and the artists interacting with audience members in place of the bot, exploring human–machine intimacy and the potential for feminist reprogramming of technological systems.

The exhibition is curated by Christina Massey, KUNSTRAUM’s 2023–24 Curator-in-Residence. Her curatorial approach foregrounds dialogues among interdisciplinary practices, emphasizing the connection between material experimentation and feminist inquiry. Participating artists Tatiana Arocha, Jaynie Crimmins, Amanda Konishi, Saskia Krafft, and Nadja Verena Marcin each contribute distinctive perspectives that together form a vibrant network of embodied intelligence.