The Hmm @ Maastricht

When scrolling through porn online, have you ever noticed the interior decor? Mike is a visual artist who jumps from one context to another with his work—tilting perspectives and loading up encounters with sparkling information which seems to come from alternative realities. Tonight Mike will be joining us to talk about his latest fascination, the paintings he spotted on the walls in online porn movies. He’ll be sharing his diverse collection and his art historical analysis of the paintings with us. Link

Can art help us critically question technological developments? Veerle is an interdisciplinary researcher who’ll be joining us to speak about her podcast Kunstmatig (Artificial), which focuses on the relations between art and technology, and how they can help us reflect on and learn about our everyday digital realities. She’ll be discussing the ways in which artists challenge our perspectives on new technologies and how technology simultaneously shapes how we experience the arts (from live-streamed concerts to exhibitions in VR). Link



Young people are increasingly concerned with their own identity and clothes are a big part of that. But the relationship between clothing and climate change is rarely made. Tonight we’ll hear all about ‘Who cares what you wear?’, an interactive educational theatre performance for young people with the aim of drawing attention to issues in the field of fashion and sustainability. Mayke, the director of the project, and Ilse, one of the actresses in the performance, will join us to talk about the importance of involving young people in these conversations about the clothing industry. Link

The limitlessness of meeting new people, of gathering information, of newly found cultures such as memes, or the important doggo’s group chat. These are just some of the things that Brent, a performer studying at the Toneelacademie in Maastricht, loves about the internet. He performed in a play called ‘the Memers’, and in the video ‘The roots of a beach beneath a ripped night sky’ he combines nature with technology. He’ll be joining us to speak about the internet as a new world and the pros and cons that come along with that. Link

Theo is an artist who builds virtual spaces and the interfaces for the human body to inhabit them. Kostis is a visual artist, art theorist and curator whose work responds to social phenomena through the mimetic re-working of social reality. They will be joining us to speak about Readiness: Civil War, the latest episode in the Readiness SAGA, which combines LARP, media art and performance art to create a serialized simulation of social conflict in the US. In this work, humour and cynicism meet head-on in a chaotic concoction of celebratory disorder, social critique, and technological horrors. Link and Link

What are the ethical obligations of artists who work with data? How can they ensure that other people’s data stays in their hands and doesn’t go to the servers of big companies like Google or Amazon? These are just some of the questions that Christy, who builds machines as an artistic practice, is asking herself. She uses machines and robots to play with her own perception of the natural world and her role within it. She will be joining us to speak about ethical coding and the difficulties she’s experienced in working with (other people’s) data in an online environment. Link