DER KONTERFEI (SoS Journal; “The Likeness”), a publication series founded by Robert Jelinek in February 2014, is not a publishing house, but an extension of his artistic production, where epistemological interests are rendered as text in the form of books. DER KONTERFEI is a reduction to the origin and sources of Jelinek’s artistic activity, language, questions, contents, and a reflection of his opposites and his interactions with them. In this series the artist’s urge to visually depict and illustrate is temporarily abandoned in favor of elucidation in his readers’ heads. To Jelinek, each edition in the series represents a personal dissertation and an artistic work in its own right. DER KONTERFEI serves furthermore as preparation for the coming SoS Academy, and its publications already provide “course material” for that enterprise. In the form of conversations, essays, and manifestos, DER KONTERFEI portrays selected topics and personalities which/who reflect contemporary societal tendencies and which/whom Jelinek considers to be relevant to the future SoS Academy. The publication of “buried” knowledge, interdisciplinary strategies, and scientific and cultural texts committed to the humanist tradition is not only a lasting contribution to societal and technological progress, but also a calling card of the SoS Academy, providing its basic curriculum.

DER KONTERFEI was conceived as a cooperation between artists and musicians, journalists and scientists, seeing as their disciplines perform research on and in society. In the process, artistic and cultural issues are connected to approaches, modes of thought, and strategies of specialist scientific fields and vice versa; phenomena are examined and illuminated from, and anchored in, an artistic and scientific perspective. DER KONTERFEI has a clear, unmistakable and consistent line in terms of both contents and aesthetics, along which the positions and approaches of the artists, authors, issues, and the publication series as a whole reflect (on) contemporary tendencies. Through its chosen topics and questions DER KONTERFEI mirrors current artistically relevant intentions and methods. This publication series thereby gives impetus to innovative developments at the points of intersection between art and science.

Cooperations with authors, scientists and artists up to now:

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Maxi Allesch, Aristide Antonas, Dirk Baecker, Thomas Ballhausen, Sibylle Berg, Braco, Reinhard Braun, Richard Brem, John Carpenter, Romeo Castellucci, Bohdan Chekan, Olena Chekan, Coil, Erich von Däniken, Heinrich Deisl, Thomas Dehner, Bill Drummond, Mette Edvardsen, Christian Fennesz, Laura Farmwald, Klaus Ferentschik, Grandmaster Flash, Marino Formenti, Philipp Furtenbach, Alexander Garber, André Glucksmann, Alfred Goubran, Peter Greenaway, Katharina Gsöllpointner, Vaclav Havel, Hanns Hatt, Gottfried Helnwein, Andreas L. Hofbauer, Felix Höhne, André Höschele, Alois Huber, Michael Hurtig, Robert Jelinek, Sašo Kalan, Christian Köberl, Katharina Sophie Krump, Elke Silvia Krystufek, Sedef Kücükandac, Katharina Lehr-Splawinski, René Luckhardt, Admir Mešić, Günter Mik, Marek Moučka, Hannah Mucha, Natascha Muhič, Didi Neidhart, Boris Nemtsov, Herbert Nitsch, Daniela Vasilica Nutu, Oswald Oberhuber, Markus Öhrn, Toshiki Okada, Maria Papadimitriou, Mariano Pensotti, Paul Pizzera, Paul Poet, René Pollesch, Udo Pollmer, Igor Pomerantsev, Milan Prchal, Genesis P-Orridge, Monira Al Qadiri, Jannik Rapp, Alain Robert, Achmed Sakajew, Noa Schaub, Uwe Schütte, Azade Shahmiri, Stoya, Nairi Summhammer, Béla Tarr, Andreas Thinschmidt, Maximilian Thoman, C. Deniz Tokluoglu, Milan Trnka, Ulay, Timm Ulrichs, Sarah Vanhee, Marija Vrdoljak, Herman de Vries, Kristin Wadlig, Paul Watzlawick, Kimberly Wächter, Peter Weibel, Anna Witt, Dieter Würch, Jürgen Zulley

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By means of its aims as a publication series and its distinctive profile, DER KONTERFEI serves to enhance general interest in art by approaching its readership and audience directly rather than through the traditional book trade. The series seeks dialog, discourse, analysis, intercommunication, networking, and open process, as well as the development of central concepts of interdisciplinary work. DER KONTERFEI promotes both engagement with new medial forms of expression and the transgression of conventional borders between genres and disciplines. It represents a significant contribution to the merging of existent audience groups and strata as well as towards reaching a new and younger audience through localization in presentations and social networks.

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SoS Academy

The SoS Academy is a continuation of the art project, State of Sabotage (SoS, 2003-2013), which had a population of over 14,000 citizens, many of whom, using their SoS passports, were able to travel to countries they had previously been forced to leave. Similar to how the State of Sabotage gained de facto state recognition, the SoS Academy is intended to become an officially accredited subject, a research facility, and/or an institute at an established university for a period of five to seven years. Ten times a year, research topics will be developed with students in the form of symposia, lectures, exhibitions, workshops, and publications. The SoS Academy is not an educational institution in the conventional sense of the term, but is located directly at the site of a societal event. The academy builds on the social reflexes of intervening in societal processes and actively helping to shape democracy. It is not intended to be a mere think tank or thought laboratory, but a place that also provides exciting impulses and the artistic-scientific tools to effect real change of societal conditions, whether in the form of political activism, social participation, or civil disobedience. The SoS Academy has a foreground of migration in the sense of non-conformity. It will serve as a positive motivator while imparting the potential for humanist knowledge. The SoS Academy has already taken its first form with the publication and presentation of the SoS Journal, DER KONTERFEI.

 

Biography

With his trans-disciplinary artistic works, Robert Jelinek has been contributing effective and progressive impulses to further the establishment and mediation of contemporary art outside of the conventional art scene since 1990. As a visual artist, he operates at the points of intersection between time-based media, interior/exterior design, electronic music, olfactology, agriculture, and political systems, and is constantly in search of new artistic strategies, localizations, and the active inclusion of a broader public. An essential component of his method is enhanced artistic positioning and contextualization, which consistently seeks to achieve greater immediacy between the work and its audience, thereby creating a platform for the artist’s stances and marketing opportunities. This method was arrived at over the course of 25 years of activity, including the realization of various labels in diverse artistic genres and further developed through cooperation with other artists. Whether as the internationally-renowned record label Sabotage Recordings (1994-1999), the hit product, CASH - The Scent of Money (1998), or the micro-state, State of Sabotage (2003-2013), his entire oeuvre has boldly transcended established solutions and practices in conventional cultural production.