FORT Biennale_01
Jun 07–Nov 10, 2024
Fortress Franzensfeste, Franzensfeste (South Tyrol)
Language is not only spoken but lived—embodied in gestures, organs, rhythms, silences. It moves between the spiritual and the physical, building worlds within us and around us. The first edition of FORT Biennale_01 In the Body of Language – Im Körper der Sprache – Nel corpo del linguaggio, staged inside the monumental Franzensfeste Fortress, asks how language shapes identity, power, and coexistence in times of upheaval and technological transformation.
Within this charged environment, Nadja Verena Marcin presents #SOPHYGRAY, an interactive installation that extends into a workshop and performance. Her work uncovers the hidden architectures of digital infrastructures, showing how language, when encoded into algorithms, influences gender, knowledge, and authority. In collaboration with dancers Lucilla Patrizi and Anastasia Kostner, Marcin transforms bodily movement into dialogue with code, exploring how the corporeal and the computational mirror and confront one another.
In a workshop co-hosted with the Women’s Museum Merano, she invites writers to “teach feminism” to artificial intelligence, exposing both the biases inscribed in machine learning and its radical potential. In this way, Marcin situates the female body at the threshold between presence and disappearance, between language as tool of liberation and as structure of control.
Curated by Ulrike Buck and Margareth Kaserer, FORT Biennale_01 gathers contemporary voices such as Özlem Altin, Alexandra Cárdenas, and Toni Schmale alongside historical works by Tracey Emin, Roni Horn, Alighiero Boetti, and Brigitte Kowanz from the Museion collection. Together, they create a polyphonic field where the body of language is understood as resistance, imagination, and possibility.
The Biennale is presented in a comprehensive catalog In the Body of Language – Im Körper der Sprache – Nel corpo del linguaggio (Bruno Books, Venice, 2024).
Programming
#SOPHYGRAY Performance at Contemporary Art Day AMACI
October 12, 2024 – 6 PM
#SOPHYGRAY’s Feminist-Write-A-Thon Workshop at Women’s Museum Meran
October 10, 2024 – 5 PM
INSTITUTION
Fort Franzenfeste
Brennerstraße | Via Brennero
39045 Franzensfeste | Fortezza
South Tyrol – Italy
LINK TO EXHIBITION
FORT Biennale_01 In the Body of Language
LINK TO PERFORMANCE
#SOPHYGRAY Performance at Contemporary Art Day AMACI, Oct 12, 2024
LINK TO WORKSHOP
#SOPHYGRAY’s Feminist-Write-A-Thon, Oct 10, 2024
CURATORS
Ulrike Buck and Margareth Kaserer
ARTISTS
Özlem Altın, Altınstark, Zayne Armstrong & Ellinor Aurora Aasgaard, Gianfranco Baruchello, Alighiero Boetti, melanie bonajo, Alexandra Cárdenas, Max Castlunger, Carlfriedrich Claus, Roberta Dapunt, Tracey Emin, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Sylvie Fleury, Julia Frank, Chiara Fumai, Siggi Hofer, Hannes Hoelzl, Roni Horn, Brigitte Kowanz, Sophia Mairer, Beatrice Marchi, Nadja Verena Marcin, Maurizio Nannucci, Bruce Nauman, Masatoshi Noguchi, Sunny Pfalzer, Caroline Profanter, Egon Rusina, Toni Schmale, Berty Skuber, Lawrence Weiner, Karin Welponer, and Jörg Zemmler
CATALOG
Ulrike Buck and Margareth Kaserer, eds., In the Body of Language – Im Körper der Sprache – Nel Corpo del Linguaggio, Venice: Bruno Books, 2024. 48–51, 159, 252–255.
PRESS
Silvia M.C. Senette, “L’assistente virtuale feminista,” Corriere dell’Alto Adige, Bolzano, 9 Oct 2024.
“Feministischer Schreibworkshop,” Sterzing: Der Erker, Oct 5, 2024.
“Feministischer Schreibworkshop,” Die Neue Südtiroler Tageszeitung, Bolzano, 4 Oct 2024. 21.
“Tag der zeitgenössischen Kunst in der Festung,” Die Neue Südtiroler Tageszeitung, Bolzano, 4 Oct 2024. 27.
“SOPHYGRAY’S FEMINIST-WRITE-A-THON,” ichfrau.com, Merano, 4 Oct 2024.
Andrea Affaticati, “Südtiroler Festung als Kulturhotspot: die Franzensfeste in Brixen,” Kurier, Wien, Jul 9, 2024.
Verena Voigt, “Nadja Verena Marcin: #SOPHYGRAY Kollektive Feministische Intelligenz (KFI) und ihre Alter Egos,” art-in-berlin, Berlin, Jun 30, 2024.
SPONSORS
With the kind support of FORT Biennale and a travel grant by Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.