Doireann O’Malley: Conversations on a Crosstown Algorithm

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Both presentations bring together new and existing works to create a thorough impression of the artist’s practice during the past few years. O’Malley was a participant in BPA// Berlin program for artists 2019/20 and a fellow of Berliner Förderprogramm Künstlerische Forschung 2020/21. In different ways, both programs are dedicated to supporting emerging Berlin-based artistic practices and research. The exhibitions are accompanied by a newly commissioned text by Stanton Taylor.

Conversations on a Crosstown Algorithm (2022) is the first iteration of Doireann O’Malley’s new body of work consisting of three acts based on their long-term artistic research commissioned by Berliner Förderprogramm Künstlerische Forschung in 2020/21. Shown successively over the course of the exhibition period, the different acts of this immersive 3D animation are probing us to reconsider the relationship between nature and technology, at a time of simultaneous crises, by looking into new forms of queer subjectivity and their entanglements with data economy, artificial intelligence, and identity politics. With references to surveillance architectures and computational networks, the installation is set in a virtual chatroom, at times reminiscent of an abandoned data centre or an empty casino, in which its queer protagonists find themselves trapped. Recalling these archetypical spaces for accumulation and reward constructed through systems of conditioning and reinforcement, the setting calls into question the psychological disorders and malfunctioning processes accelerated by the desiring machines of capitalism. The title of the new work is a quote from a script developed in a collaborative auto-fictional writing process, as part of O’Malley’s research fellowship. This iteration features two of the main collaborators, Mathea Hoffmann and Juan-Carlos Cuadrado, with parts of their script co-written by Jeremy Wade. The 3D modeling is created by Bertrand Flanet and Simone Mine Koza, the sound design with original composition is by Caroline McCarthy, and the space design is by Celeste Burlina.