ABOUT
Ephemerals is a Brussels-based curatorial, activist and educational platform that aims to counter/queer AI surveillance technologies by showcasing intersectional art practices through online and offline publications, exhibitions, talks, screenings and workshops.
AI algorithms are nowadays capable of discerning and identifying groups of people and target them with ads, fake news, political messages or even weapons. These technological novelties increase the power of private companies and governments, cause polarizations and disproportionately affect marginalized identities. They are hence a major threat to peace, civil liberties, social justice and democracy.
Ephemerals wants to raise awareness on the implications of AI surveillance technologies by showcasing discursive art practices, contribute to the ethical discourse around them and support fairer and more responsible technologies in an effort to safeguard privacy and democracy.
MEMBERS
Yorgos Karras is a curator and researcher. He holds a Master in Art History and Archaeology from the VUB where he researched art as a tool for social and political change. He focused on anti-authoritarian artistic movements of the late 1960s and the use of photography, film and performance as a way to escape hegemonies and create new realities. He then pursued a PhD project at the intersection between contemporary art, AI surveillance studies, activism and queer theory.
Yorgos gained experience as curatorial advisor for Privacy Salon, teaching assistant in Art History at the VUB and coordinator of the Brussels Museum of Mill and Food. He currently works at argos, centre for audiovisual arts. Before studying Art History and Archaeology, he obtained a bachelor in Communications from Erasmushogeschool Brussel and worked for 10 years as communication officer for non-profit organizations.
Suzanne Cleerdin (aka Mandy Pixel) is a Brussels-based DJ and audiovisual artist, weaving together sound, visuals and text to create experiences that defy conventional boundaries. With a background spanning studies in Sociology, Media Arts, and ongoing pursuits in Fine Arts (at KASK, Ghent), Suzanne’s creative work and curation delves into themes of memory and its intersections with violence, while always seen through a queer lens, exploring narratives that challenge conventional norms and perceptions. It leads to sets, events and work where sonic landscapes intertwine with visual narratives, traversing known and disruptive territories.
Besides working on her own artistic and curatorial projects, such as a monthly residency at Radio Kiosk and the organizing of monthly concerts in Brussels, Suzanne also recently started performing live in an act that can best be described as sonic storytelling. Additionally, her work extends involvement in various (new) media projects of other artists, serving as a director or production assistant or sound designer for films and dance performances.
Noah Heylen is a Brussels-based artist-researcher specializing in digital infrastructure, new media art and military technology. He is currently working as a Project Manager for Gluon - platform for art, science and technology, besides finishing up a Master’s in Fine Arts (KASK, Ghent) and studying Remote Sensing. Throughout his writings, audiovisual installations and sculptures, Noah analyzes hype culture and military aesthetics. At the moment, he is working on his master project on the use of throwaway vape batteries within small drones for military use.
Antoine Simeão Schalk is a Swiss-Brazilian curator based in Geneva and Berlin, working within the intersection of visual and sonic practices. A Master graduate in Fine Arts from the Geneva University of the Arts HEAD-Genève, he has been interested in the materialization of theory through bodily practices. Antoine has worked as performance curator for FdS – Festival artistique des affects, des genres et des sexualités in Lausanne, a platform to discuss body politics and shifting identities. Bodies as possible sites for political imagination have constituted one of his axis of research, whether in exhibition or in performing art spaces.
He has curated projects with the participation of artists such as Davi Pontes, Wallace Ferreira, Young Boy Dancing Group, Aun Helden, Ashkan Sepahvand, Catol Teixeira, Luis Garay, David Weishaar and Élie Autin. His curatorial projects have unfolded at Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst (Zurich), ii magazine (Rome), La Rada (Locarno), Urgent Paradise (Lausanne), one gee in fog (Geneva), La Rada (Locarno), Arsenic (Lausanne), Théâtre Sévelin 36 (Lausanne) or Casa da Escada Colorida (Rio de Janeiro), while his texts have been published in PW Magazine (Vienna), Arts of the Working Class (Berlin) and Rosa Mercedes – Harun Farocki Institut (Berlin). He is a 2023 recipient of the curatorial research grant by ProHelvetia, a 2023 fellow at Istituto Svizzero in Palermo, Sicily, and a 2024 research fellow at CASTRO - Contemporary Art Studio Rome.