About
Pirate Cultures is a transdisciplinary research that examines piracy as an emancipatory strategy of re-appropriation, care and DIY culture. The project revolves around practices of reclaiming the city and the (technology-enabled) self-organization of solidarity networks. Pirate Cultures tell of unusual urban routes, digital spheres free from existing power relations, resistance against patriarchal body politics, the bypass of conventional media infrastructures, open source systems and peer production – of struggles and utopian desires.
Team
Artistic Direction
Magdalena Scheicher, born 1991 in Vienna, is an artistic researcher at the intersection of contemporary art theory and cultural studies. Her theoretical work undertakes historicizations and future speculations on (queer)feminist theories, countercultures and urbanism. She studied Art History at the University of Vienna and Media Culture and Art Theories at the University of Art and Design Linz and writes and publishes on media art, performance, and sound art, a.o. for Reposition Journal of Reflective Positions in Art & Research, Sonic Territories, RAD Performance, Urhof 20/Kunsthaus am Schneeberg, and Werner Berg Museum Bleiburg/Pliberk.
From 2019–2023, she worked as a freelancer for the evn collection (Lower Austria). From 2022–2025, she was part of the artist collective Sandkasten Syndikat. Since 2025, she is a curator and artistic co-director at Medienwerkstatt Wien.
Design and Artistic Assistance
Joanna Coleman, born in 1986 in Vienna, is a media artist, performance artist, and graphic designer. They studied Transmedia Art and Media Design in Vienna.
In recent years, they have realized a series of exhibitions, a publication, and events with the Sandkasten Syndikat, Klub Møntage, and Pirate Cultures Vienna. Their cultural work centers on strengthening and connecting self-organized initiatives and resisting patriarchal (body) politics.
Colemans artistic practice, which oscillates between performance, sound art, techno music, video installation and expanded drawing, explores the creation of spaces for action at the edges of systems as a form of self-empowerment using technology as a tool to amplify as well as distort messages and signals.
« Pirates are powerful cultural icons in Western political imaginations – being romanticized and idealized as rebels that are moving beyond the rigid norms of the state and the market. In fueling fantasies of an anarchic freedom on the fringes of civilization, these narrative figures serve us as a blueprint for the examination of political and cultural movements. In the context of precarious and improvised societal spheres, they draw upon various utopian desires and self-organized autonomy. »