Modding The Mirror World
The opening is on September 15th, from 18.00 till 21.00 in our showroom!
Every bit of your being—your footsteps, your heartbeat—is sensed; and a constant question in the air: are you where you should be?
In the year 2025, Rotterdam unveiled Project Eixogen, a city-wide network featuring an intricate web of interconnected smart lampposts that track and coordinate your every move. Years have passed and ever since, every action in the smart city unfolds according to a hidden script. Each individual autonomous movement is part of a deeply thought-out collective choreography. A unique citizen ID and individual token grant you access to various places and activities, be it main squares, public transport, or driving. As you explore the city, your actions are meticulously logged, offering you personal rewards in line with hyper-personalized objectives tailored to each user profile.
Even when the sky darkens, the city remains awake—its smart poles flickering like mechanical fireflies in the jungle of buildings. Any irregularity of the movement patterns is noted and directly addressed by the network’s spotters. There is no way to escape; every route is planned, calculated, tracked and traced. You feel like an Amazon parcel. Yet, amidst this automated city, resistance thrives. A daring group calling themselves ‘sleepwalkers’ has formed, determined to fight for their freedom of movement and reclaim the city through vigilant urban wandering.
Modding the Mirror World opens up an alternate storyline beyond the walls of MaMA’s Showroom, emerging from beneath the asphalt of Rotterdam. In this two-month urban role-playing game, you have the chance to join the sleepwalkers to envision and explore life in future cities, and collectively challenge the norms of technology-driven control. The game uses the city of Rotterdam as its playing field and can be navigated through the browser on eixo.codes.
Project Eixogen is a speculative fiction scenario based on the current developments of Rotterdam’s CENT-R network and SkyLab.
By
Louisa Teichmann
With
Amos Peled
Lawrence McGuire
Sophie Allerding
vo ezn
Werner van der Zwan
Campagne beeld
krust.inc
Louisa Teichmann (Heidelberg, 1995) is a Rotterdam-based media artist working with themes related to gaming and the effect of new technologies on the player’s perception of reality. Through her work, she analyzes gameplay methods and merges them into real-life settings, giving rise to scenarios where the viewer becomes the protagonist of an interactive fictional narrative.
Louisa has recently completed her master’s degree in Experimental Publishing at Piet Zwart Instituut.
Amos Peled (b. 1997 IL, based in NL) is a multidisciplinary artist, focusing on experimental music and technologies, audio-visual installations, theatre and performance art. After his film and new media studies, Peled moved to the Netherlands where he graduated from the master’s program in ArtScience interfaculty (2022). Peled develops works that explore the notion of doubt as an artistic and conceptual tool. Recent projects focus on medical technology, sound installation, and the human body as an artistic medium. In his works, Peled creates defamiliarization to challenge conventions and provoke reflections on the ordinary.
Lawrence McGuire (Dublin, Ireland, 23rd of June 1997) is a composer, curator and artistic developer based in The Hague and Brussels. After studying physics and engineering at the University of Ghent (2015-2019), he is now finishing a Bachelor of Music (from 2020) at the Institute of Sonology. Both fields are relevant to his artistic practice, which concerns physical computing and experimental vocal practices. He has performed both solo and collaborative works in Belgium at Atelier Claus (2022) and Buda (2022); in the Netherlands at the Institute of Sonology (2021, 2022) and Default (2022); and in the Czech Republic at Buceni. He has made mixed media works under the moniker hogobogobogo for Edited Arts, WORM Rotterdam, and In Unison. Notable collaborators are Victor Gybels, Amarante Nat, Amos Peled, and Kazumichi Komatsu.
He co-curates the internet label In Unison, on which he released the EP ‘pepsi/coke: An Electronic Sound Poetry Transmission’. His principal concerns as a composer and performer highlight the complexity and ambiguity of our perception of voice through both practice- and research-based approaches.
Sophie Allerding (she/they) is an artist and designer, driven by an interest in versatile modes of storytelling and the creation of immersive spaces that foster meaningful interactions and play. Sophie’s work traverses multiple media, amongst others photography, film, sound and participatory performances and games. Sophie’s practice often involves exploring the delicate interplay between humanity and nature, the art of constructing realities, and the exploration of magical realms. Sophie is active in the feminist collectives POSSY and Radio Echo Collective and is currently based in The Netherlands and Germany.
Werner van der Zwan studied Fine Arts (WdkA) and Philosophy (EUR). He mainly creates kinetic installations and sculptures from discarded objects. He has worked together with composers and musicians making works in the form of theatre and composition. By animating found objects and giving them a lifeworld, he tries to question the dichotomy of subject and objects.
vo ezn /vɔ ɪzn/ — sound && infrastructure artist, working on server-side tensions and introverted interfaces ][ figuring out tools for-to knowledge-sharing / opting-out / autonomy ][ –to-for-by-with on my own terms
brewing a monthly radio transmission — non-zero exit at radio worm
part of feminist server collectives/networks systerserver / anarchaserver / minadoraserver ///// an infrastructure caretaker at hackers & designers
