Zoe DeWitt is a Vienna based multimedia artist and philosopher with roots in Industrial music and Viennese Actionism. During the 1980s her musical solo project Zero Kama has gained international cult reputation within the ritual industrial / dark ambient genre.
In the field of performance art she had been working as a model in the major actions of Hermann Nitsch's 'Orgies Mysteries Theatre', recently being followed by a collaboration with Marina Abramovic.
In her multi-layered artistic work, comprising the fields of music, performance and visual arts, Zoe DeWitt explores borderline areas of existence such as death, sexuality and the unconscious, which are negotiated against the background of a radical exposition of the body that seeks to transgress customary (gender) codes and significations. Based on quantum theoretical models, she regards the body as a field and thus expands its conception from a limited space to an endlessly extended, changeable form of existence.
Occasionally she gave lecture performances to communicate her philosophy, which is about the creation of reality by language and desire. In 2013 Zoe founded the Museum of Contemporary Mind (MUCOM) and curated the exhibition The L. A. Show: Queer Art // Contextual Painting which was shown at various public places in Los Angeles, CA. In 2017 she curated the group exhibition Queer Encounters - Vienna Trans L.A. at the California Institute of the Arts (CAlArts) in Los Angeles.
Interview quotes:
"So in my endeavor to develop a theory of magic, or reality, psychoanalysis was helpful for me on the one hand, because it already has a whole repertoire of terms and connections, mechanisms of how the psyche works. And the second thing that was important for me was actually quantum physics, because it is actually about the foundations of our universe. If we now assume that magic works, then it works because we live in this universe, then this universe is also just somehow magical, otherwise it doesn't go together."
"And yes, this innocent wishing - you don't have to push it with force, a certain subtlety is enough. Also a certain indifference, letting go is always important. It makes no sense if I recite my wish 100 times a day, or 1000 times, unless I then lose the content completely and then it works again. But, as I said, it's more the subtle, the simple that's important, and yes, also that you keep it in flux, so to speak, in your life, this process of a certain ability to fulfill your wishes."
WolfRabe