To proceed, please follow the instructions carefully.
Instructions are everywhere. From fitness routines and makeup tutorials to algorithms, official procedures, and implicit codes of conduct, they shape how we move through everyday life. At first glance, they appear as neutral tools — simply as ways to get things done. They help us operate a device, follow a workout, or complete a form correctly. At the same time, instructions translate complex realities into manageable steps, defining what counts as logical, desirable, or successful. As such, they encode cultural norms, institutional priorities, and power dynamics.
How To: Living Through Instructions approaches instructions both as a method and as a subject of critical inquiry. Through performative strategies, illustrations, and video installations, the artists examine how instructions shape behaviour, identities, and perception. They dissect manuals, rewrite tutorials, and develop new instructions that — echoing the spirit of Fluxus — range from poetic to absurd.
What happens when an instruction is decontextualised, parodied, or deliberately distorted? The artists in this exhibition render visible the assumptions embedded in these systems, shifting instructions from fixed directives into sites of negotiation.
13 Jun | Sat | 20.00: Brandstof: Make It Fit – A Life Script
3 Jul | Fri | 18.00: Natafelen RSVP