Portfolio
Jonny-Bix Bongers is director, dramaturg and designer from Berlin. He has a background in theatre and cultural science. Since 2020 he is studying Design and Computation at UdK Berlin. In his more recent pieces he works at the intersection of performative art, new media and emerging technology.
CV
O cea n fli g ht
Audio Visual Perfromance
The performance questions how we present ourselves in the digital realm, exploring avatars and metaverses as essential aspects of our future society. This piece uses digital media to foster self-expression and community formation, departing from traditional forms of representation. Drawing on Gilbert Simondon's theory of transindividualims, “O cea n fli g ht “ combines motion tracking and gaming software to create an interconnected dance performance. The transdiciplinary team invites viewers to reflect on the transformative power of digital self-expression and its impact on our identities.
more
Ars Electronica, 2023
B3 Biennale 2023
UdK, 2023
Audio Visual Perfromance
The performance questions how we present ourselves in the digital realm, exploring avatars and metaverses as essential aspects of our future society. This piece uses digital media to foster self-expression and community formation, departing from traditional forms of representation. Drawing on Gilbert Simondon's theory of transindividualims, “O cea n fli g ht “ combines motion tracking and gaming software to create an interconnected dance performance. The transdiciplinary team invites viewers to reflect on the transformative power of digital self-expression and its impact on our identities.
more
Ars Electronica, 2023
B3 Biennale 2023
UdK, 2023
34/98/5973
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Boutique 2XXX
Interactive AR installation
"A thing becomes a luxury because it is experienced by a person in a certain way. Luxury is therefore always something for someone - and for someone for whom the possession of a thing is connected with a special kind of experience". (Lambert Wiesing)
The interactive installation enables participants to design individual and critical visions of the future of luxury and subsequently create a space for reflection and discourse in the form of a mixed reality design process.
The installation is an iteration of an ongoing research project within the Design & Computation Master’s program that deals with the question of how emergent technologies can help debate socially relevant issues in a hands-on approach through interaction and visualization.
more
Ars Electronica, 2022
UdK, 2022
Interactive AR installation
"A thing becomes a luxury because it is experienced by a person in a certain way. Luxury is therefore always something for someone - and for someone for whom the possession of a thing is connected with a special kind of experience". (Lambert Wiesing)
The interactive installation enables participants to design individual and critical visions of the future of luxury and subsequently create a space for reflection and discourse in the form of a mixed reality design process.
The installation is an iteration of an ongoing research project within the Design & Computation Master’s program that deals with the question of how emergent technologies can help debate socially relevant issues in a hands-on approach through interaction and visualization.
more
Ars Electronica, 2022
UdK, 2022
34/98/5973
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A Psalm For a Body Build
VR Installation
"One is not born, but rather becomes, a body." (Legacy Russell)
Bodies, especially those of marginalized identities, have been exposed to various
modes of violence, oppression and control throughout human history. In order to resist this hostile infrastructure and rediscover the essence of our bodies as complex assemblages of virtualities and
potentialities, we propose the practice of bodybuilding.
Bridging diverse theoretical underpinnings with an artistic practice, the presented interactive virtual reality installation „A psalm for the body-built“ (by Berkay Soykan and Jonny-Bix Bongers, collaborators Janne Nora Kummer and Wro Wrzesińska) is a first attempt at creating the critical space for bodybuilding which
investigates what it means to have, and to become, a body in a technologically mediated environment. Inspired by readings in cyberfeminism, queer theory,
philosophy and game studies, these operations function as interventions into the subject's own bodily perception and encourage them to explore their bodies' (im)materiality, virtual manifestations, potentialities and becomings.
Transmediale/CTM, Vorspiel, 2023
Ars Electronica, 2022
UdK, 2022
VR Installation
"One is not born, but rather becomes, a body." (Legacy Russell)
Bodies, especially those of marginalized identities, have been exposed to various
modes of violence, oppression and control throughout human history. In order to resist this hostile infrastructure and rediscover the essence of our bodies as complex assemblages of virtualities and
potentialities, we propose the practice of bodybuilding.
Bridging diverse theoretical underpinnings with an artistic practice, the presented interactive virtual reality installation „A psalm for the body-built“ (by Berkay Soykan and Jonny-Bix Bongers, collaborators Janne Nora Kummer and Wro Wrzesińska) is a first attempt at creating the critical space for bodybuilding which
investigates what it means to have, and to become, a body in a technologically mediated environment. Inspired by readings in cyberfeminism, queer theory,
philosophy and game studies, these operations function as interventions into the subject's own bodily perception and encourage them to explore their bodies' (im)materiality, virtual manifestations, potentialities and becomings.
Transmediale/CTM, Vorspiel, 2023
Ars Electronica, 2022
UdK, 2022
35/98/5973
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The Artist is Unpresent
Video Installation
The projects aims to reframe Marina Abramovic's famous performance in an CGI reenactment, focusing on the role of art in an increasingly digitalised world. Physical presence in digital space no longer exists: Virtual objects are merely references to existing entities. The digital turn is thus not only followed by the question of materiality, but also whether the role of artists in general needs to be renegotiated.
In 2010, Marina Abramovic shows the performance "The Artist is Present" at MOMA. On two chairs facing each other, she invites museum visitors to hold her gaze for an indefinite period of time. The work questions the relationship between the artist and her audience. Abramovic's presence becomes a resistant rebellion against the voyeuristic view of art by putting herself and her presence on display.
In 2022, "The Artist Is Unpresent" tries to update the performance and questions it with regard to digital art.
What is left live for art when every interaction becomes data?
UdK, 2022
Video Installation
The projects aims to reframe Marina Abramovic's famous performance in an CGI reenactment, focusing on the role of art in an increasingly digitalised world. Physical presence in digital space no longer exists: Virtual objects are merely references to existing entities. The digital turn is thus not only followed by the question of materiality, but also whether the role of artists in general needs to be renegotiated.
In 2010, Marina Abramovic shows the performance "The Artist is Present" at MOMA. On two chairs facing each other, she invites museum visitors to hold her gaze for an indefinite period of time. The work questions the relationship between the artist and her audience. Abramovic's presence becomes a resistant rebellion against the voyeuristic view of art by putting herself and her presence on display.
In 2022, "The Artist Is Unpresent" tries to update the performance and questions it with regard to digital art.
What is left live for art when every interaction becomes data?
UdK, 2022
36/98/5973
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Werther’s Quest For Love
Performance
In his letters, the young Werther tells of the fears that accompany him, thus allowing us to glimpse into his world of sensations and reveries. He seems to be searching for a coherent identity, yet everywhere he encounters only normative expectations. He resists and searches for alternative narratives of masculinity. Via live-streaming portals he shows himself the way he wants to show himself. Undefined and multifaceted. Unlike in Goethe's epistolary novel, Werther today does not reveal himself to a pen pal, but rather sells his innermost self in the currents and eddies of the Internet of so-called social media.
Münchner Kammerspiele, 2019
Performance
In his letters, the young Werther tells of the fears that accompany him, thus allowing us to glimpse into his world of sensations and reveries. He seems to be searching for a coherent identity, yet everywhere he encounters only normative expectations. He resists and searches for alternative narratives of masculinity. Via live-streaming portals he shows himself the way he wants to show himself. Undefined and multifaceted. Unlike in Goethe's epistolary novel, Werther today does not reveal himself to a pen pal, but rather sells his innermost self in the currents and eddies of the Internet of so-called social media.
Münchner Kammerspiele, 2019
37/98/5973
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