Exhibitionمعرض

Curated exhibition of pieces of excellence gathered from around the world, displaying the diversity of media arts.

Supraspectives
By Quadratureکوادراتور

In the process of creating Supraspectives, the artist duo Quadrature has gathered the data of 590 (recent & former) spy satellites, whose trajectory the installation follows. A third of them can be considered space trash, as they are obsolete or damaged, but still, they continue overflying us. The installation calculates the paths of all those satellites in realtime and speculatively reconstructs the view they are capturing, offering artistically intervened images of what the satellites could be observing. Mainly, satellites passing near the exhibition venue are selected, combined with other specially interesting or suggestive satellite images. Additionally, a specifically built motorized live antenna on the roof connects with the satellites overflying Tabakalera, transforming their real radio signals into sound. Every time the installation connects with a satellite, the screen shows the data relative to it, such as the country of origin, or year of launch. The installation displays live visuals from the contrast between the suggestive beauty of the earth seen from above and outer space, and a critical awareness of its human colonization, very often for military and surveillance purposes.

About the Artist

Quadrature understands technology as means to read and write realities, with data as their main artistic material. The Berlin based artists utilize transdisciplinary media to create artworks that not only capture the intersection between art and science, but also the converence of digital and analog realms. The two members Juliane Götz (*1984, DE) and Sebastian Neitsch (*1982, DE) met 15 years ago at Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle. Their works are shown worldwide, including ZKM Karlsruhe, Hek Basel, Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb and Akademie der Künste Berlin.

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Doing Nothing With AI
By Emanuel Gollobامانوئل جلوب

Doing Nothing with AI 1.0 uses AI, robotics, and brainwaves to continuously choreograph a flow of motions with the intention to make the participant “do nothing” and daydream. In times of constant busyness, technological overload, and the demand for permanent receptivity to information, doing nothing is not much accepted, often seen as provocative and associated with wasting time. People seem to always be in a rush, stuffing their calendars, seeking distraction and the subjective feeling of control, unable to tolerate even short periods of inactivity. The multidisciplinary project Doing Nothing with AI intends to address the common misconception of confusing busyness with productivity or even effectiveness. Taking a closer look, there is not too much substance in checking our emails every ten minutes or doing some unfocused screen scrolling whenever there is a five-minute wait at the subway station. Enjoying a moment of inaction and introspection while letting our minds wander and daydream may be more productive than constantly keeping us busy with doing something.

About the Artist

With his art practice, Emanuel Gollob (AT) (b. 1991) bridges aesthetic research, human-A.I. interaction and robotics. Gollob graduated from the University of Applied Arts Vienna with a diploma in Design Investigation (2019). From 2020 to 2021, he was an artist in resident at MindSpaces, an EU research project in the STARTS initiative framework. Since 2020, he is a PhD candidate and artistic researcher at the University of Arts Linz. Gollob’s work has recently been exhibited in various international institutions, including Art Science Museum, Singapore (2022), Smithsonian Arts + Industries Building, Washington DC (2021); Science Gallery Melbourne, Melbourne (2021) and Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón (2020), among others.

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Freeing Images in Dust
By Rafael Skiرافائل اسکی

As an artist, my will is to translate feelings through computer codes, as in a semiotic rendering. It’s the intrinsic search for connection. I believe that, by expressing my inner self, as an individual, I am also talking about the collectivity, about what pervades all of us. In other words, what sets us apart is also what connects us. Even within this theoretically cold and rational environment of chips, LEDs and electronic sensors, I seek the humanization of these technologies. By using digital techs to create interactive environments, I establish interactions between individuals and themselves. What is inside resonates with the ambiance. So, maybe, my quest is for humanity, indeed: by awakening familiar feelings in others, we can all connect through art.

About the Artist

Since 2010, Rafael Ski has been working with the tools of his time: the so-called “cutting edge low technology”, using affordable, simple, and everyday electronic components combined with advanced technologies such as facial recognition, elaborate motion sensors, and intricate movements of digital particles. In this sense, the Brazilian artist is always exploring the impact of new technologies on our daily lives. Among the residencies and festivals participated in, two editions of the digital art festival TADAEX in Tehran, Iran, stand out; in addition to three editions of the artist residency “Interactivos?”, which took place in Spain and England. Working with digital and interactive media, his artistic objective is not limited by the technology itself: although Ski uses logical reasoning to create interactive environments, he seeks to awaken the public, provoking reactions and feelings that go far beyond the sphere of reason. Within this potentially cold and rational environment, the artist seeks the humanization of technologies.

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RHIZA
By Noor Stenfert Kroeseنور استنفرت کروز

RHIZA is an interspecies connector that invites you to become part of the communication between her mycelium and oyster mushrooms. The tower's oyster mushrooms and mycelium continuously exchange biodata through electrical signals. The biosensors pick up these electrical signals and translate them into vibrations you can feel by standing bare feet on the mycelium floor pads. RHIZA emerged as an aspiration to enable human beings to transgress their own species and connect with otherness in multiple ways. This complex network with their subtle blend of cooperation and conflict can be seen as an example of how we relate with each other and our environmental systems. Like human society, this growing inter-species society is characterised by variety, with its capacity to help, hinder, cooperate, and exploit. Nature is built on connections and so are we.

About the Artist

Noor Stenfert Kroese is a new media artist and scenographer. From a critical post-human perspective, her works evolve around the relationship between humans and non-humans in spatial performative installations. She is currently graduating at the MA Interface Cultures of Kunstuniversität Linz (AT). She graduated in 2020 with the BA Scenography from the Amsterdam University of Arts (NL). Her work is inspired by the interconnectedness of science, nature and technology. Whereby the intertwinement between her work and the spectators are essential. Her work does not provide a direct answer but seeks the space to ask questions and to experience. Her work was exhibited and performed at venues and festivals such as the Barcelona Design week (ES), EYE Filmmuseum Amsterdam (NL) Dutch National Opera & Ballet (NL), and the Ars Electronica Festival (AT). She received awards for her work from YouFab Global Creative Awards (JP) and Prins Bernard Young Talent Award (NL)

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Fragile Cosmos
By Natan Sinigagliaناتان سينيجاليا

As in a quiet forest, any movement breaks the intimate silence of the space, generating echoes that solely time can bring to fading. Only when stillness permeates once more, can the gentle uncovering of a fragile cosmos re-emerge.
 Using bespoke software the motion and noise levels are registered in the space. Any perturbation of stillness and quietness detected will rupture the gentle unfolding of this digital process. Each person is responsible for the other's experience as much as their own. How to exist in this interdependent ecosystem?
The public, standing on the threshold between observing and being observed, is invited to contemplate on the act of witnessing as a delicate form of participation.

About the Artist

Natan Sinigaglia is a sound and visual artist from Italy, currently based in Berlin, Germany. With a strong background in music, contemporary dance and real-time graphics, he creates canvases where languages lose their boundaries and share forms and meanings. 
During his artistic research, he collaborated with many musicians (Maxim Vengerov, Vanessa Wagner, Gloria Campaner, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Odile Auboin, Mira Calix, Novi_sad, Jamie xx, Four Tet ...), composers (Nick Ryan, Dmitri Kourliandski), orchestras (Ensemble Intercontemporain, London Contemporary Orchestra, International Menuhin Music Academy Orchestra), dancers (Alexander Whitley), visual artists (Marshmallow Laser Feast, Quayola, Pedro Mari, Claudio Sinatti) worldwide. 
As an active developer, he contributes to open-source libraries and participates in the development of vvvv, the visual programming language adopted for all his creations. Natan Sinigaglia gives lectures and workshops about generative code and sound-visual art at international festivals.

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Ghost Over Banksy
By Anderson Tegon A.K.A Pepper's Ghostأندرسون تيجون

Banksy for a large percentage of his artistic genius is a secret and invisibility has always been something very attractive to me. He would define it a superpower. The first time that I saw this artwork I immediately thought: "Can you imagine?... this child knows the secret!". From that moment, it immediately occurred to me that it would be magical to give bring her alive, and give her a voice and the digital art has this superpower. This is one of the cool part of this kind of art cause is able to make any place, space, wall that contaminates alive. I wanted to respond to all the many people that are still telling me that digital art is not real art and I found very funny to prove that they are wrong by animating what they consider art and creating a new artwork. This demonstrates that art is not made by comparing or classifying but by creativity and visionary sense of improving and innovation. This is something I try to do in all the installations I make: combine and give them a meaning to bring people into a journey full of intense emotions. Let’s call it immersive art experience. It is my way of communicate what I have inside of me to the people who live our artwork regardless any kind of technology we are going to use: to me it is about the intensity and the emotional strength of the experience. This is why I really like digital art cause has no limit, it can be an immersive experience, a light show, an outdoor or indoor installation, a concert or even a graffiti on the wall. I just don’t like limits. In Ghost Over Banksy, the art took the full control of the technology and I used it like a brush. We do a lot of research into technologies and it is very important but no one asks which spray was used by Banksy, Blue, or Eduardo Kobra, rather than which kind of brush was used by Basquiat. In the same way, nobody cares about which kind of video projectors were used by Pepper's Ghost, people, like artists, only cares about emotions. The lyric that I personally wrote is a deep declaration and a provocation in pure hip hop’s style, a culture that contains also the street art itself, with a flow that means something that specially as a black artist, I feel like a part of me. This is because of its simplicity and provocative capacity to be understandable to everyone telling the truth just using rhythms and words making us reflecting without give any answers but only by asking simple questions. It leads us to get Banksy’s real intent and human selfishness capable of searching and finding water on another planet and reserving wars, discriminations and hunger for our world. The match of all this is a new language. For the first time, street art and street culture find expression in an immersive digital version. It is for this love for street art that I wanted to create it respecting its deepest rules: A secret action, A nocturnal action, An action that leaves only a strong message, strong as only a performance of street art that paradoxically happened in the only city in the world without street. I was looking to do it playing with the canal’s water that reflect the pink of the smoke to improve the natural Venetian’s atmosphere surrounded by that intense voice when suddenly the “Migrant Child” turns on the flashlight and just say: Shhhhhh... enjoy the silence because I am real, I am alive... just here and now, just for one night... look at me, listen to me and feel me.

About the Artist

Anderson founded Pepper’s Ghost in 2019 . This name, recalling the first hologram effect ever, refers to a collective of digital artists, graphic engineers, visual and video artists, light and sound designers. Pepper’s Ghost creates, produces and self-produces immersive exhibitions, digital street art performances and NFTs. Pepper’s Ghost realized some of the most important digital artworks in Italy: such as Aura | The Immersive Light Experience in Milan, defined one of the top 5 immersive exhibitions in Europe, the first permanent digital installation commissioned by Ministero della Cultura at Museo Collezione Salce, the 360° immersive and real-time navigable space at Monte Rosa 91, a Milanese iconic building by Renzo Piano and much more. On March 2022 he launched its Ghost Over Banksy, based on a famous Banksy’s stencil and which reveals the first Digital Street Artwork ever made. Now he is approaching the Middle East market with new stunning immersive experiences and installations.

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Ath'thaniyah, 2018 Three-channel video with color and sound 11 minutes
By Shaikha Al Ketbiشيخا الكتبي

In my lens of perception consciousness and subconsciousness are interwoven landscapes. They coexist in conjunction with one another, only accessible through my personal acts of dreaming, mark-making, and meditative contemplation. In that vast, complex landscape which appears barren, instances of thought manifest into monuments and conclusions take a physical, architectural form. I am interested in the manner in which my subconscious has constructed this particular monument: a set of haphazardly scattered stairs leading up to a large platform with a satellite dish casting an immense shadow. My consciousness is only given access to it in my sleep. Through this work, my current physical existence has felt the need to retrieve this experience by constructing this monument in the 'real world' and almost roleplaying this dream. My process examines how that act of manifesting monuments of the subconscious advances the conversations I have with myself, thus creating more reactions within my subconscious and giving birth to more monuments. --------------- U.A.E. Unlimited is a satellite platform founded and supported by His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, one of the youngest prominent patrons of the arts in the United Arab Emirates. The platform is managed by the Executive Director, Shobha Pia Shamdsani, who is also the Art Adviser & Director of the Modern & Contemporary Middle Eastern Art Collection of H.H. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan.--------------------------------------------------------------- The artwork was commissioned for the exhibition Ishara: Signs, Symbols and Shared Languages in 2018, and held in the collection of U.A.E. Unlimited, Abu Dhabi

About the Artist

Shaikha Fahad Al Ketbi is a visual artist whose multimedia practice spans across photography, drawing and installation art. Her work explores themes of self- awareness and blurs the line between fiction and reality. Her artistic practice involves documenting site-specific rituals within isolated landscapes, which are then contextualized through her vivid dream-like imagery. Al Ketbi graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts, at the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises at Zayed University. She participated in the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nayhan Foundation Emerging Artists Fellowship, and currently she is pursuing her Masters of Fine Arts in Global Art Practice at the Tokyo University of the Arts. Her work has been included in exhibitions including the 2018 Arab Women Artists Now exhibition 'Perpetual Movement' in London, 2018; Art Bahrain 2018; Armenia Art Fair 2018; UAE Unlimited's 'Ishara: Signs, Symbols and Shared Languages' exhibition 2018; the Zayed University graduate exhibition in 2016; 'Collectivity' at Maraya Art Centre; and the 2018 Tribe Magazine's 'Tribe: Contemporary Photography from the Arab World' in Washington, DC. She is also one of the founding members of the Public Art Collective, a group dedicated to the research and advancement of public art dialogue in the UAE.