Coca Cola Living, from the group exhibition #vaporfolk #hollyvoodoo. Sponsored by Amazon Readymades at Lust Gallery, 03 Jun 2015 - 27 Jun 2015. The exhibition featured: Zsófia Keresztes, Angus McCullough, Deborah Delmar Corp, Alexandra Hackett, Andreas Ervik, Stephanie Syjuco, Michele Gabriele, Pau Sampera, Peter Moosgaard, Bernhard Garnicnig. Curated by Bernhard Garnicnig and Peter Moosgaard.

"The internet tribe abandoned the global village when it started to resemble a shopping mall. After the digital natives were promised that their new ideas would lead to fame and success on global markets, they are now confronted with totalitarian networks and corporate structures. Consequently they turned their heads away from the screen. Facebook owns the copyrights to their ideas, shared infinitely to only disappear in the clouds.

Among all the possible realities imaginable, artists start to look for common ground in products, hardware and brands - commodities made from global materials. A form of recursive materialism emerges. The common ground between seven billion people is that we can all share a micro USB connector. An empty coke bottle will be found in the desert sands and nomads navigate the dunes with a Samsung tablet. Global materials seem to override all phantasies of unique visions and subjective expressions.

But the internet tribe moves to the outskirts of physical production, reusing artifacts from the world of corporate mythologies. They work with concepts of the "Archaic" instead of "New", choosing to be 'poorsumers', transforming ideological waste into something magical. For them, art is a poetic freight and the trade system a collective parable of desire. By imitating commodities in almost shamanic rituals, a higher form of cargo is summoned: be it future wealth, success or even art.

#walmartsurrealism #hyperethnicity #vaporfolk #brandart #matrixbotanica #productshamanism #favelachic #holycargo #ritualfakes #ancientonline #poplatch #postdigital #ersatzculture #saintpepsi #refundutopia #parableofdesire #neomaterialism #summonwarhola #hollyvoodoo #digitalnaïve #artsypovera"
Before the exhibition the curators, Moosgaard and Garnicnig, held a workshop/sweatshop producing the artwork. I sent instructions for brewing a natural coke, made with living bacteria and yeasts. Since Coca-Cola recently launched a Coca-Cola Life, this piece was named Coca Cola Living.

Coca Cola Living closely resembles sodas created prior to modernization: no added flavors, fizz resulting from the fermentation process, living microbes still present in the drink upon serving. Since Coca-Cola products likely never were made with fermentation this coke becomes more real than "the real thing".

The workshop participants were given a .pdf with the recipe for brewing Coca Cola Living, and instructions to draw the logo for the new product, based on their memory of the Coca-Cola brand identity.