January 17 - January 25, 2025

Ma Yongfeng is a multimedia and socially engaged artist, as well as a social activist, currently based in Berlin. His practice spans a wide range of mediums, including photography, video, public interventions, and digital media. He is the founder of Forget Art, a decentralized, autonomous collective active in China between 2009 and 2014 and the online community channel Anarchy Hospital. Over the course of our decade-long friendship and artistic collaboration, I have observed how his practice, while constantly evolving and adapting to diverse contexts, has consistently maintained a specific conceptual framework: testing the boundaries of art in terms of usership and its potential to tactically articulate a critical impact on reality and social structures. His work leverages transformative and mimetic processes of emancipation, operating at the intersection of international socio-political and cultural contexts within digital, post-digital, and post-colonial critical frameworks.

His video work, Everything That Rises Must Converge, exemplifies his ability to generate a palpable zone of tension through a gesture that blends spontaneity with performative precision. The transformative power of this work lies in its
material exploration of change—not as a metaphorical or philosophical concept, but as an embodied process induced by autonomous behavior. In the piece, Ma methodically, yet casually, lights twenty boxes arranged in a 4x5 grid on the floor of Organhaus in Chongqing. This act transforms the gallery space into a potentially hazardous environment, one that remains seemingly under control yet charged with latent danger. The action unfolds naturally, evoking a ritualistic quality without adhering to any specific symbolic or ceremonial framework. Ma’s ordinary attire contrasts sharply with the visually striking and destabilizing device he activates, further complicating the viewer’s interpretation of his intentions.

The work begins with a minimalist aesthetic, reminiscent of codified artistic displays, but this order is gradually disrupted by the random sequence of fires. As the flames rise, the quiet severity of the initial arrangement gives way to a dynamic and entropic transformation. Ma’s performance includes moments of hesitation, as he becomes increasingly aware of the danger he has introduced—a danger that is both self-inflicted and beyond his full control. What are we witnessing? A game? A ritual? The ambiguity of the act, carried out with calm detachment, clashes with the intensity of the visual and physical transformation occurring in the space. The heat, the rising flames, and the growing tension challenge the viewer’s perception of the environment and their relationship to it. In an era defined by data-driven control, resurgent authoritarianism, and polarizing forces, what emancipatory spaces and pockets of resistance can artists still carve out through their interventions? Ma’s work does not offer definitive answers but instead deploys a tactical elusiveness to create a present and embodied tension. By maintaining fluidity and resisting direct interpretation, his installation focuses on the visceral experience of energy release through combustion, emphasizing the potential for dangerous yet transformative processes. The title of the work, Everything That Rises Must Converge, further underscores this ambiguity. While the phrase is often associated with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit philosopher, and directly referenced in Flannery O’Connor’s novel of the same name, it may also evoke the Yijing (Book of Changes), with its dialectic of opposing forces and cyclical nature. Yet, Ma offers no explicit clues, leaving the interpretation open-ended.

Ma Yongfeng’s performative installation reverberates in the materiality of burning and the tension of the moving image it creates. It serves as both an alert and a warning, embodying the contradiction between its mesmerizing aesthetic and its inherent danger. The work channels a distant yet immediate source of energy—one that can be unleashed but not entirely controlled. In a time when surveillance and control permeate every aspect of daily life, Ma’s piece stands as a potent reminder of the unpredictable and transformative forces that lie just beneath the surface of our structured realities.

Alessandro Rolandi, Bern 17.01.2025

29.02.2024

LOCATION: OHM, Köpenicker Str. 70, 10179 Berlin,BERLIN

FORMAT: Exhibition, performance, live-set

CURATOR: MOLT TEAM

ARTISTS:

Lisa Goetze, Serge Sanches, Deividas Vytautas, Eli Cortiñas, Jun Ortega, Young Boy Dancing Group,

Ma Yongfeng, Saara Ekström, Stéphanie Lagarde, Selin Davasse, Hannah Endrulat, Uxile, Maay, Ariesfallenangel

Invisible Networks

Opening Reception

Date: Sunday, June 23

Time: 19:00-21:00

Moos Space, Moosdorfstraße 7-9, 12435 Berlin

In the digital era, we are not only sentient beings who experience life, we are also measurable units in vast, invisible networks. We have learned to see ourselves in a way that is convenient for the digital platforms to gather information. This merging of the technological and human gaze raises pivotal questions: How much are we interacting with technologies as if they are an extension of our body? How much are we sacrificing for predictability, efficiency, and productivity? How do we maintain a balance between the subjective joy of life and the efficient exchange of energy?

Wyvern Art Fund is pleased to present Invisible Networks, an exhibition and event program taking place at MOOS Space (Moosdorfstraße 7-9, 12435 Berlin) from June 23 to June 30, 2024. Invisible Networks is the culminating collective curatorial project of the Wyvern Art Fund Scholarship program, which has brought together eight artists and thinkers over four months to explore the ways that the technological gaze manifests and affects us on personal, somatic, social, and structural levels.

Participating artists include Alistair Alexander, Ipek Burçak, Rocket Loam, Asa Maynard, Viky (mvm.alves), Susan Ploetz, Maya Weinberg, and Ma Yongfeng.

The ways we see ourselves through technology also influence the ways we are able to imagine futures and relations. While exploring both the potentials and limits of technologically intermediated sensing, seeing, and knowing, Invisible Networks asks: What would it take to inspire hope and action instead of dystopian self-destruction? How can we appreciate connections with other humans, animals, and plants that are less mediated by digital interfaces? Where is our agency to decide how to interact with this evolving landscape?

Wyvern Art Fund offers financial support for artists and thinkers to work on their own projects and to co-create aesthetic experiences. As a trust-based community, Wyvern explores possible forms of togetherness through experimenting with methods and practices of autonomous and sustainable co-existence and collective curatorial practice.

Encounter: 6th Tea Oval: Anarchic Art Practices in China under AI Socialism

Date: Thursday, October 17

Time: 19:00-21:00

In the 1960s, Myanmar’s most influential scholars, politicians, activists, and artists admired China for its stability and ideology for world peace. However, Chinese long-standing support for Myanmar’s ruling Juntas, China’s influence on Myanmar’s media, and the provision of surveillance technology to the junta have raised concerns about press freedoms and human rights. The 6th Tea Oval session will explore the totalitarian state of China today, especially in its most advanced AI socialism and its severe impact, via Ma Yongfenhg, a Chinese artist and curator based in Berlin who has a deep understanding of the intersection of art, technology, and politics.

China’s ban on major international social media platforms and internet apps around 15 years ago has led to the emergence of a highly advanced AI totalitarian state. This state relies on massive data and a closely monitored algorithmic model, along with traditional authoritarian governance methods. The resulting AI socialism is a fully controlled system designed to maintain stability through algorithms, creating a blend of a futuristic cyberpunk dystopia and a digital feudalistic kingdom. Dealing with issues such as facial recognition, grid management, and crowd control in public spaces, traditional anarchic practices must urgently establish mutual aid, direct democracy, technical counterattack, and platform cooperation in the digital realm. It is not just a task but an urgent necessity for artists, hackers, and activists to prioritize reclaiming physicality as a political goal under the rule of AI socialism.

BIO

Ma Yongfeng resides in Berlin and works with video and film, conceptual art, socially engaged practices, and political art, and has realized successful art projects as a curator. Lately, his focus has been on political video and film, site-specific interventions, and situations. Some of his projects involve flexible, guerrilla, and immaterial social participation. His politically engaged tactics involve introducing new concepts and methodologies into existing mechanisms through social practices and relational resistance. His innovative approach challenges the feasibility of establishing a direct-democratic, alternative-political algorithmic model to replace the current technological oppression shaped by nation-states and multinational tech giants.

This program is supported by The Senate Department for Culture and Europe’s Weltoffenes Berlin Program

EXAMPLES TO FOLLOW!
expeditions¹ explorations in aesthetics and sustainability

Uferhallen
Uferstraße 8,
13357 Berlin-Wedding

11.05.2023 - 16.07.2023

Artists of the Berlin final

Ravi Agarwal (IND) • Marc Aldinger (D) • Jennifer Allora | Guillermo Calzadilla (USICU) • Francis Alÿs (BELIMEX • Néle Azevedo (BR) • Joseph Beuys (D) • Richard Box (GB) • Jens Burde (D) • Yaacov Chefetz (IL) • Ines Doujak (A) • Olafur Eliasson (BIDK) • Emine Ercihan (D) • Enrico Freitag (D) • Susanne Gabler (D) • Galerie für Landschaftskunst (D) • Emiliano Godoy (MEX) • Lola Göller (D) • Dionisio González (E) • Sonia Guggisberg (BR) • Swaantje Güntzel (D) • Hermann Josef Hack (D) • Ilkka Halso (FIN) • Cornelia Hesse-Honegger (CH) • Edi Hirose (PE) • Klara Hobza (CZ) • Vincent J.F. Huang (TW) • Alejandro Jaime (PE) • Martin Kaltwasser (D) • Folke Köbberling | Martin Kaltwasser (D) • Christian Kuhtz (D) • Christin Lahr (D) • Antal Lakner (HU) • Sigalit Landau (IL) • Jae Rhim Lee (KRIUS) • Till Leeser (D) • Dana Levy (IL) • Sarah Lewison (US) • Marlen Liebau | Marc Lingk (D) • Rudolf zur Lippe (D) • Ma Yongfeng (CHN) • Renzo Martens (NL) • Ayumi Matsuzaka (BIJP) • MITKUNSTZENTRALE • Lucia Monge (PE) • Manish Nai (IND) • Eliana Otta (PE) • Shirley Paes Leme (BR) • Dan Peterman (US) • Alejandra Prieto (CL) • Rebecca Raue (D) • Dodi Reifenberg (ILID) • Pedro Reyes (MEX) • Ariel Rojo (MEX) • Gustavo Romano (AR) • Michael Saup (D) • Artist Collective SCHAUM (D) • Michal Schmidt (D) • Hannah Schneider (D) • Dina Shenhav (IL) • Robert Smithson (US) • David Smithson USID) • Superflex (DK) • Jakub Szczesny (PL) • The Yes Men (US) • Maria Vedder (D) • Wang Jiuliang CHN) • Andreas Wegner (D) • Natalia Wehler (D) • Gal Weinstein (IL) • Xing Danwen (CHN) • Yang Shaobin (CHN) • Zwischenbericht (D)

New Artists:

David Brandstätter (D) • Nele-Marie Gräber (CH) • Christine Henry (PT) • Anne Duk Hee Jordan (D) • Folke Köbberling (D) • Marcus Maeder (CH) • Vera Meyer (D) • Vanessa Ramos-Velasquez (BR) • Roberto Uribe Castro (CO)

Scientists (alle D):

Dr. Norbert Höpfer • Prof. Dr. Vera Meyer • Susanne Schmitt | Cornelia Ertl • Charlett Wenig | Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten • Dr. Manuel Rivera

EXAMPLES TO FOLLOW! ETF! will end at the very place where it started 13 years ago.

Between 2010 and today there lie many thousands of nautical miles and land kilometers of distances, four continents, many anxious hours in ports waiting because of corrupt customs clearance and late arrivals of ships. The 40-foot container has always been the unit of measurement and transport for the entire 13 years, paying attention to a reasonably acceptable ecological footprint from the start. ETF! has become a pioneer of an alternative artistic practice in terms of size, internationality, abundance of artistic approaches. At each new exhibition location we have integrated the respective artistic, scientific and environmental activist competencies, which means that the presentation is constantly changing and condensing. On the travel we showed the works of a total of 128 artists from 27 nations, currently there are still 70 works; 40 of them have been there from the beginning, others have been added in the respective countries and cities to which our explorations have led us. ETF! has made guest appearances in the capitals of Ethiopia, Peru and China, in Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Puebla, Haifa and Jerusalem. 225,000 visitors saw the exhibitions, for which we worked together with 19 project partners at 29 exhibition venues.

So on this last – analogue – station we want to sum up, deepen and discuss what we have experienced and learned so far, what of it is recommended for imitation! is and remains. In this critical and reflective view, we are accompanied by impulses and the questions of the artists and collectives, the ETF! turn off. The works of art currently address a wide range of topics: climate change, biodiversity, plastic pollution, renewable energies, fossil energies and nuclear energy, access to water, rare earths, overexploitation of and sealing of surfaces, sustainable consumption, also old cultural techniques such as the extraction of terra preta, water filtering, recycling and upcycling. In doing so, they sharpen the focus on flight, expulsion, hunger, debt (reduction) and democratization.

The exhibition has become a pioneer of a distinct artistic practice in terms of size, internationality and
richness of artistic methods. At every venue, the particularities of the respective artistic, scientific and environmental activist knowledges were integrated. As a result, the presentation became more condensed. Each piece already existed and was not just created for a single occasion but was contextualized anew at every single venue. This, too, was and is a sustainable statement against the fast-moving nature of the art market and the short-sightedness of funding practices. Principles of action ETF!

Since ETF!’s started 13 years ago, the preoccupation with the climate disaster, dwindling resources, shrinking biodiversity and actions addressing them has increased significantly in the arts as well as in the political sphere. Lately we can observe artistic institutions implementing gezillion little measures making the institution ecological efficient. However, these measures are only addressing the institutions itself and are not supporting artists engaging with the environmental disaster.

ETF! on the contrary, focused from day one on expanding the individual artistic resonance space, interfering with transformative fields – from urban to material development, from climate theatre to sustainable exhibition concepts – using the means of art, and expanding social perception and imagination for transformation.

In keeping with the principle of the exhibition, further – already existing – artistic positions will be added in the Berlin exhibition integrating the local perspectives and knowledges.

This last venue shows 68 of the artistic positions assembled so far. The chronicle of this journey can be wandered on three Litfass-columns; in the hall hang thoughts that were asked of all 128 artists about what ETF! was and is for them, processed by the artist Nele-Marie Gräber.

We are drawing from the reservoir of voices for a fund of aesthetics and sustainability | FAeS as a basis for workshops, panels and lectures.

The boundaries between art, research and invention become blurred in the experimental arrange-ments of the artists, their inventions and interventions, their architectural and aesthetic reflections. Many of the artistic positions use science and technology for their emergence, while others criticise precisely these. The works revolve around the big and the existential questions of our present times- and all of them provoke and request individual action.

The dramatic changes in our living conditions require the cooperation of the various social forces. It is about preserving, visualising, consciously shaping life, about the active engagement of human beings with their own and the surrounding nature.

We need new ways of thinking, moving and organising to be able to tackle the challenges of our present. This requires permeability and alliances between the arts, sciences, activism and participatory processes. And cooperation projects with an economy that is willing to change.

At the end of the Berlin exhibition ETF!will continue to live on digitally as the pioneering exhibition
it is through an openly accessible virtual tour. Sustainability does not mean to reinvent the wheel over and over again but to recognize on whose shoulders we stand

ETF! shows the relevance of artistic questions for the genuinely cultural challenges of global dislocation and relies on the transformative power of art, on its imaginative capacity as one of its inexhaustible resources.

For the radical transformation, we need the permeability of artistic, scientific and the knowledges of social movements; this requires leaving the silos of art, culture and science, which stand disconnected next to the other silos. We need to think bigger in terms of cultural policy. And we need visions for a sustainable life that can be combined with sensuality, the desire and passion of one’s own actions.