pseudo-co.: spawning alt-reality

About

pseudo-co.: spawning alt-reality deliberately inserts itself into a fold of the retail stage—across two acts—how bodies dissolve, mutate and converge within consumer society. Subjects who own nothing—subscribed to life through fleeting bonus-points of happiness—wander through virtual medieval aisles. Paradoxically, individuation intensifies even as it dissolves into data swarms. If capital is a self-propagating algorithm, the bio-digital mutation coursing through this architecture is its fuel.

In the glare of capitalist realism, gondolas and LED signs crystallize a hypnagogic atmosphere. Even while knowing the void, we keep investing desire and guilt in the commodity, embedding jouissance in every “limited offer.” With scarcely any affective resistance left—and the total fire accelerating—pseudo-co. turns the shopping mall into a board where these forces are experienced: a field of tension in which the visitor must decide whether to inhabit, parasitize, or hack (guest, parasite or co-agent).

Part I: pseudo-co.    15 - 24. May

What does Co. stand for? Corporation, consumption, control? This first part introduces pseudo-commercial structures—simulating systems of branding, display, and bodily presence. The artworks respond directly to the site, where commodification isn’t hidden—it’s the raw material. Nothing is for sale, yet everything echoes the language of retail aesthetics, surface appeal, and transactional desire.

Artist: Yan Chmarau, Oscar Veyrunes, Bailey Keogh, Maja Zagorska, Mahmoud Ismail

• 15. May Opening 19.00- with Sound Intervention by Mahmoud Ismail / 20:00

Part II: Spawning alt-reality    28. May -7. Jun.

What grows within systems of consumption? This second part turns to fragile formations—artefacts, terrarium screens, and synthetic ecologies that emerge not in opposition to capitalism, but from within its residue. The works speculate on post-digital life, where what we call nature and technology blur, glitch, and hybridise. 

Artist: Eternal Engine, Boris Aiub & Mano Leyrado, Anneliese Greve & Yun Kima, Ida-Marie Simonsen

• 28. May Opening with Live Audiovisual Ritual-Performance by Eternal Engine / 20.00 

• 7. Jun Finissage 

Curated by Yun Kima in collaboration with Mano Leyrado

At Rathaus Center Pankow,

Part of Artspring berlin 2025

Opening hours

Mon-Wed. Closed

Thu.-Sat. 15.00 - 20.00