Mary-Audrey Ramirez. Forced Amnesia

For her solo exhibition Forced Amnesia, the artist Mary-Audrey Ramirez (*1990 in Luxembourg) creates an environment that evokes the impression of being inside a computer game. Ramirez reproduces the classic staggered structure of computer game storytelling with a labyrinth-like presentation in the Kunsthalle. Inspired by the aesthetics of games, she allows glimpses into other fantastic worlds that are inhabited by insect and reptile-like creatures, whose bodies are enveloped in shiny materials. She developed these creatures in collaboration with an artificial intelligence (AI), a text-to-image generator. A desire for a direct connection between the digital and physical worlds is integral to her practice. With the title Forced Amnesia, Ramirez refers to the theory of self-induced forgetting to banish traumatic experiences from one‘s own consciousness. Through an active compulsion to repress events, the hippocampus, which is functionally involved in memory, is disrupted and reversible amnesia can follow. Furthermore, the term can refer to the collective eradication of cultures and religions. The focus here lies with influencing the writing of history. A third meaning can be the manipulation of memory by outsiders. The intensive examination of modes of thought outside of the mainstream are part of Ramirez‘s artistic practice. She deliberately uses and integrates exhibition titles into her work, whereby the title Forced Amnesia can also be understood as a way to read AI‘s blind spots. To the extent that AI is based on pre-existing data, it also adopts its bias (slant, prejudice) and dominant narratives, while taking other content less into consideration so that it can be slowly forgotten. Ramirez developed the presented body of work for this exhibition. The exhibition at the Kunsthalle Giessen has been realised in cooperation with the Casino Luxembourg – Forum d'art contemporain, where it will be on show from 02.02. (opening) to 05.05.2024. With the support of Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg Edward Steichen Award. Many thanks to Petra Martinetz, Cologne Büro für Frauen und Gleichberechtigungsfragen der Stadt Gießen // Diverse Stadt Gießener Graduiertenzentrum Kulturwissenschaften (GGK) | International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC).