Speaking Freely: An Interview with Addie Wagenknecht

Addie Wagenknecht is an artist and researcher based between the U.S. and Europe. We met a few years back when she invited me to be part of Deep Lab, a “collaborative group of cyberfeminist researchers, artists, writers, engineers, and cultural producers” that she co-founded in 2014. We’ve shared the stage together twice at re:publica in Berlin, and I always enjoy having the chance to chat with her about art and free expression.

This conversation was no exception, as it journeyed from censorship in the art world to the restrictions social media place on profanities [ed. note: this interview contains a few of those] to the impact of conspiracy theories on our societies. As a successful artist, Addie brings an important perspective to this ongoing conversation about what free expression means. 

Jillian C. York: Let’s get started. What does free expression mean to you?

I’m looking at it from the point of view of somebody who works in arts and culture; a lot of it has to do with how that’s translated within institutions and museums, commercial galleries, and the art world.

For me, it’s specifically about the right of expression creatively and being able to translate thoughts or political situations into things that can be shown in an open and public space, with the caveat that a lot of these spaces are donor and privately-run, so there are a lot of stipulations around what can be shown or how it can be shown.

York: Would you say that you identify as a defender of or advocate for free expression?

Yeah, I would say I definitely advocate for freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and the right to those freedoms both inside and outside the U.S.

York: Would you mind sharing a personal experience you’ve had with censorship or with utilizing your free expression for the common good?

I think the first thing that comes to mind is a project called Webcam Venus [ed. note: link contains nudity] which is about highbrow and lowbrow culture and what is considered art versus what is considered porn and how do you deviate and know the differences. It’s a piece where sexcam workers pose in traditional or classical pieces of well-known art, in an institutional sense. It’s taking paintings that are frequently cited within our history or the art canon, and recontextualizes those in a more contemporary means using webcams and sex performers.

That piece was installed a few times for more institutional museum shows but also for more commercially-sponsored events. It was shown at Internet week in New York City...I always think of New York as this kind of progressive place where you can do what you want, and it’s radical and open to new ideas. The piece was installed for this marketing or tech week in New York, and within five to ten minutes of the piece going up, someone came up to me and said they couldn’t show it, it had to be taken down immediately. So I asked why they wanted it taken down, and they said “Google is our sponsor, and they don’t want this up. It’s inappropriate, and it’s not something we want people seeing.” So they shut it down, they thought it was completely inappropriate to have in the context of this Internet culture week.

York: I do remember that, I think it came up in one of the talks we did together, but I didn’t know that part of the story.

It’s crazy, because I’ve always thought that imagery and pornography are what have driven so much of technology, and the advancement of wifi, and higher speeds, but then the fact that it’s completely siloed from the rest of the internet when you’re celebrating internet culture for me was a really disappointing thing, especially in New York, which I thought was so open to new ideas and discourse. It being shut down just popped that balloon for me.

York: That’s really wild. What was the impetus for that project? What inspired you to create it in the first place?

I was collaborating with Pablo Garcia, and our constraints were that we wanted to create a project together, but we were in different time zones—him at the Art Institute of Chicago, and me in Europe. Our constraints were that we were wanting to create a project across di