Decorations is part of Sascha’s Nonlinear History of Violence, a speculative investigation into art and politics. His contribution is inspired by the late 1920s’ concept of ‘cultural cannibalism’, the attempt by Brazilian Modernism’s ‘Movimento Antropofágico’ to overcome the cultural dominance of centuries of colonialism.

Through digital manipulation, Decorations cannibalises contemporary US military awards and their (anti-)formalist qualities. Technically, Sascha retrieved low-resolution PNG files representing three medals awarded for outstanding achievements in the US Global War On Terrorism since 2003 (GWOT Civilian Service Medal; GWOT Expeditionary Medal for soldiers who served in one of the 54 countries or 10 sea areas worldwide; and GWOT Service Medal) from one of the largest online vendors of US military decorations, and zoomed in.

The result is a visually seductive, microscopic analysis – conceptually metastable, oscillating between autonomous artwork and a representation of the system they are derived from.

Sascha Mikloweit trained in Münster, Düsseldorf and at Central Saint Martins, London, where he was awarded an MA Fine Art in 2010. Following an interest in violence, ideology and aesthetics, his transmedial work currently uses counter-terrorism as a model to understand the dynamics of hegemonic structures, and how their manifestation feeds back into public perception.

Sascha’s work can be strangely beautiful and subconsciously disturbing. Format and medium are determined during the process of subject-specific engagement; most recently, this has involved minutely interpreting the remnants of an authentic ‘suspicious’ briefcase detonated by counter-terrorism task forces of the British Transport Police in London.

Sascha has exhibited at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre, Darmstadt, DEU; Museum of Communication Frankfurt, DEU; Museum of Communications Berlin, DEU; Static / 7th Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, GBR; Associação Brasileira de Empresários de Diversões, São Paulo, BRA; Platoon Kunsthalle, Seoul, KOR; alongside 13th and 14th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, TUR; Goehte Institute, Warsaw, POL; SFTF Project Space, Vienna, AUT; Bargehouse, London, GBR.
His work is held in public and private collections in Europe and North America. He lives and works in Berlin.