Jakub Jansa builds functional environments designed to dissect contemporary industries of the self and their ideological influence on volatile social strata. In Jansa’s works, ideologies of bettering, promises of self-development, improvement, and fulfillment translate to temporal architectures hosting seminars, lectures, and games. Works such as Spiritual Fitness (2016) subtly overidentify with self-consistent programs of psychological and physical transformation. Spatial atmospheres turn into time warps. In Club of Opportunities (2018), close-of-a-day feelings, depressive moods, bitter hopes, and the semi-dimmed lights of a bar create the atmosphere for a lecture on the ontology of celery and its impact on game theory, delivered by philosopher Kamil Nábělek. An electric piano improvises on Rihanna’s We Found Love. Jansa’s video My name is Red Herring (2018), which completes the installation, a disturbing troll offers lessons in political strategizing.

#bettering #selfdevelopment #feelings #gamestheories #piano #Rihanna #troll #politics

photos: Nysos Vasilopoulos, 6th Athens Biennale 2018 ANTI