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Contagious!

LUANA BECHSTEIN, ANGELIKA WONISCH

Contagious!

Societies subsist on social contagion, emotional exchange, and mutual contamination. Using the idea that sparks ignite others just like spreading memes or earworms and pass on infectious enthusiasm, this project created colorful buttons to be shared to remind us that not only viruses are contagious, but also laughter and yawning, ideas, excitement, and emotions. How do infectious transfer processes work in physical distancing times? Where do they take place NOW? What media can be used to initiate social contagion across barriers?

(Biodegradable) buttons are given out as gifts and passed on. Spreading fast, they transport enthusiasm, create temporary communities, and disappear again: Let’s be social superspreaders!

Jubiläumsbrunnen, Adalbert-Stifter-Platz

Q To what place would your dream expedition go?
LB with Agatha Christie to the pyramids
AW inside
Q What would you do, if you would not have followed this profession?
LB I would be the Phantom of the Opera or a cartoonist for Disney
AW I would probably have become a ceramist
Q What is NOW for you?
LB ROAARR!
AW
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Angelika *1994, lives in Linz. In 2019 I started my master studies in Media Culture and Art Theories, before that I studied Time-based and Interactive Media. On the side I am working as an artist.
Luana *1985 in Hamburg, cultural scientist and artist. As a PhD candidate I am doing research on the aesthetic-affective cognitive potential of artistic positions for the development of new concepts of aging. I have an M.A. in Cultural Studies from Humboldt University Berlin and a B.A. in Applied Cultural Studies from Leuphana University Lüneburg. I studied painting at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and biology at the University of Hamburg. With partner and Rauhaardackel I live in Berlin.