Lawrence Lek: Theta’s World

As the second edition of the Incubator’s orders, X Virtual is pleased to present the latest project by artist Lawrence Lek, Theta’s world. Created on X Virtual’s online multiplayer platform, Theta’s world is an experimental video game that explores inhuman consciousness, virtual cityscapes, and storytelling through video game infrastructure. The work is based on SimBeijing, a fictional smart city by artist Sinofuturism.

Theta’s world immerses the player in the heart of SimBeijing, a fictional smart city that was created as a cradle and testing ground for intelligent technologies devoid of human life. The work extends to a complex world consisting of three levels, differing by the time of day – from “A looping city at dawn,” By “Lattice city at dusk“to”Vertical city at midnight– each referring to Theta sleep states and the evolution of consciousness. Taking on the role of the first player Theta, a self-driving car dreaming of his life and choices in this city, the player embarks on an odyssey through multiple layers and increasingly complex narratives.

Resonating with the methodology of architect Lebbeus Woods, Lek designed a cityscape that creates a mirror effect of time, structure and form that permeates each level. Embedded in this urban fabric are scattered bits of text, each whispering stories that change and evolve with each journey taken. The non-linear nature of these narrative threads provides each participant with an unparalleled storytelling experience. By bestowing dreams on Theta, consciousness, subjectivity, and machine existence are explored through a lens traditionally unexplored. Placing the AI ​​entity in a world where only non-human life exists makes us wonder about the ethical complexities inherent in such a reality.

The playable online masterpiece will end with an immersive installation. A physical business card Theta’s world will be on display from August 2023 at the X Museum in Beijing.

Lawrence Lek

Lawrence Lek is a filmmaker, musician and artist who combines diverse practices – architecture, games, video, music and fiction – into an ever-evolving cinematic universe. Over the past decade, Lek has incorporated his generation’s vernacular media, such as video games and computer-generated animation, into site-specific installations and digital environments, which he describes as “three-dimensional collages of found objects and situations.” Often featuring interwoven narratives and a recurring wanderer, his work explores the myth of technological progress in the era of artificial intelligence and social change.

Lek studied at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, Architectural Association in London and The Cooper Union in New York. Lek recently graduated with a PhD from the Royal College of Art in London. He has exhibited internationally with recent solo shows including Sadie Coles HQ, London (2023); QUAD, Derby (2022–3); ZiWU The Bund, Shanghai (2022); Prague Center for Contemporary Art, Prague (2019); HeK House of Electronic Arts, Basel (2019); Urbane Künste Ruhr, Essen (2019); and art space K11, Hong Kong (2018).

X Virtual

Launched by X Museum in 2019, X Virtual is a digital arts platform that is driving new 3D artistic spaces in virtual worlds. X Virtual provides a digital infrastructure – an interoperable network of virtual worlds that stimulates new artistic productions and critical practices. We commission artists to create an audiovisual space on the X Virtual online platform and organize online and offline exhibitions and virtual gatherings.

As a museum affiliated initiative dedicated to cultivating virtual worlds, X Virtual aims to foster new thought, discourses, and interdisciplinary practices in light of emerging Web 3.0-centric technologies, including XR, AI, and game engines. Working with digital creators from all walks of life, we are dedicated to building an accessible digital arts platform for rapidly evolving Web 3.0 virtual worlds for everyone.

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To combine: https://xvirtual.org/thetas-world

Game Society: video games in contemporary art and visual culture

Gaming Society is an exhibition that explores how the grammar and aesthetics of video games have influenced contemporary art and visual culture and permeated our society and everyday life in the five decades since the release of the first video game. Video games include designing interfaces for visual and auditory stimulation, storytelling that captures the imagination, immersive experiences, and social interaction, making them the most relevant form of media today. Gaming Society looks at the process of powerful synchronization between society and video games that has been accelerated by the pandemic. He explores the context in which society becomes virtual spaces and the reality of these spaces becomes part of everyday life, exploring what gaming experiences can convey and share with us. The exhibition features 9 video games and over 30 works by contemporary artists influenced by the grammar and aesthetics of video games. Among the games on display are Korean video games and selected rentals from the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which have acquired games since the early 2010s.

Reading is imagining the world, watching a movie is observing that world, and playing video games is living in that world; imagination and realism have become a common experience and visual grammar in modern society. Playing a game is analogous to the contemplation and appreciation of contemporary art in the sense that it requires active participation in the work of art during which the viewer can experience a moment of art. However, game worlds are still imperfect. There is a distinct lack of diversity in games where virtual worlds are filled with hyperbolically perfect bodies and women, the elderly, frail or disabled are either not represented or appear as unplayable characters. Just like in real life, finding a way to access games and their digital environments can be difficult for them. By contextualizing the digital spaces and games in the exhibition, MMCA, as a space of integration, proposes to re-imagine our society where gamification has become part of everyday life, exploring the gaps and empty spaces in games. After all, presenting games in a museum is directly related to the question of museum accessibility. Playing a video game is no different from watching an art exhibition in that the video game tutorials are like an exhibition guide with marked routes, exits, and entrances; gathering experience and skill by playing the game is like growing fluency and appreciation of the arts by visiting exhibitions and museums.

All video games in this exhibition are available to play. Viewers can play them using a game access controller designed and developed by the Korea National Rehabilitation Center Assistive Technology Open Platform, together with Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller devices. As video game critic C. Thi Nguyen has noted, games are “an artificial form of action.” As such, the exhibition offers viewers ways to gain a fresh perspective on the issues that arise when they gamify their daily lives by providing versatile and expansive controllers. In a similar spirit of inclusivity and accessibility, the exhibition also presents online projects organized with PACK.

For MMCA, this exhibition is a celebration of what video games and art museums share their experiences. The exhibition is also an active endeavor to share a common act of access and reflection on video games and the art museum, observing the roles and spheres of the individual and the public. In both video games and art, it is the application of contemporary knowledge and social experience and the speculations that it generates that give us the opportunity to re-evaluate the world we live in. Intention in that sense Gaming Society is to provide viewers with an opportunity to reflect and challenge the efforts and attention required to make public spaces and gaming more inclusive, to reframe where we may want to redefine our common goals. Through games as an artistic medium with cross-generational appeal, the exhibition aims to provide each person with a full sensory range in a unique way that best serves each person’s artistic experience and values.

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http://www.mmca.go.kr/eng/

NEW NOW Digital Art Festival

The NEW NOW Digital Art Festival will be held from June 1 to August 6. Authorized supernatural forcesthe exhibition at the Mixing Room and accompanying events will focus on the strong interactions between nature and digital.

Developed especially for the exhibition, all works in the Mixing Room are world premieres. As part of the NEW NOW residency, seven artists were invited to develop projects for supernatural forces. For seven months, they intensively researched, researched and engaged with the location and history of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Zollverein and the architecture of the factory. In addition to the resident artists, other artists have been invited to show new works. The festival is directed by Jasmin Grimm.

supernatural forces: June 2 – June 8, 2013
Exhibition with world premieres of AATB, Daniel Franke, Eva Papamargariti, Haha Wang, Jan Kerima Stolzer and Lex Rütten, Pinar Yoldaş, Sabrina Ratté, as well as Ali Phi and Cinzia Campolese. Opening June 1 at 20:30.

We live in the age of hypernature. Technical knowledge and organic life come together in a new way. The lines between reality and simulation are blurring. New dependencies and symbiosis appear. Nature itself becomes art. Exhibition for nine weeks supernatural forces from June 2 to August 6, 2023, he will show artistic positions around the topic of hypernature in Mixing Room.

The guests enter the territory of a roaming herd of robots. Listen to the captivating song of invasive plants. Or wander through desolate landscapes of electronic waste and organic fiction. In Zollverein, they can experience how artificial intelligence (re-)interprets this place – once the largest mine in the world – and generates new worlds from it. NEW NOW shows which ecosystems, biotopes and cycles emerge as plants, animals, minerals, technology and people intertwine in new ways. The exhibition is accompanied by an interactive audio walk designed by Körperfunkkollektiv. It invites visitors to reflect on the interplay between humans, nature and technology, and to immerse themselves in the artworks and themes on display.

Immersive Sound Night: June 1 from
With France Jobin and Markus Heckmann, Myriam Bleau, Katatonic Silentio. Visitors are invited to immerse themselves in electronic-audiovisual soundscapes during the Immersive Sound Night on the inaugural evening on June 1. In partnership with MUTEK Montréal, an international festival of digital creativity and electronic music, NEW NOW presents international artists who will fill the Mixing Plant with experimental electronic sounds and visuals.

Conference: June 2, 10:00–22:00
With Anja Schürmann, Anna-Verena Nosthoff, Daniel Franke, Daniel Hengst, the diffraction center of theoretical peripheries, Eva Papamargariti, Felix Maschewski, Franziska Barth, Geert Lovink, Hannah Wallenfels, Jana Kerima Stolzer and Lex Rütten, Kathrin Yacavone, Lyndsey Walsh, Manischa Eichwalder , Manuel van der Veen, Markus Rautzenberg, Mona Leinung, MONOM Studios, Pınar Yoldaş, Rafael Rozendaal, Rafael Dernbach, Sabrina Ratté, Sam Balfus, Tabitha Swanson, Total Refusal

The conference will be available both on site and as a live webcast and will be available with translation into English and German. Live stream Here.

Conference on supernatural forces will take place on June 2 as a discursive element NEW NOW. Throughout the day we will discuss and experience how digitization is changing our understanding of nature. To this end, international and local artists will talk to scientists, activists and all other stakeholders in the Zollverein.

Is digital technology a supernatural force? How are digital technologies changing our understanding of nature? And what are the ecological effects of digitization? These questions are the focus of the NEW NOW conference. Without computer models, knowledge of the climate crisis would be limited. With the help of artificial intelligence, biological organisms can be recombined and create speculative worlds.

At the same time, digital technologies are increasingly criticized for their role in destroying ecosystems and deepening the climate crisis. We want to discuss how digital art discovers new natures and images of nature. Part of the conference is a symposium of the Essen Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (KWI) as a contribution to their annual “More or less” theme entitled “Digital Relations and New Environments”, which will examine the new and unfinished negotiation processes between people, nature and technology. The evening’s performative program explores “hypernatures” in an artistic way.

Participation is free. Please register Here.

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To combine: https://newnow-festival.com/en

RE:HUMANISM 3rd edition of Sparks and Friction: a large collective exhibition devoted to the relationship between contemporary art and artificial intelligence

Sorry, this entry is only available in Italian.

Post-capitalist architecture on TV, episode 06: In ravines.

In cooperation with, York University Art Gallery (AGYU), Evergreen Brick Works (Evergreen)AND Toronto Art Biennale (TBA) we announce the launch online: Joar Nango AND Ken Or Bongo, Post-capitalist architecture on TV, episode 06: In ravines.

Toronto’s ravine system is both a location and a theme Joar Nango AND Ken Or Bongo‘S latest episode of Post-capitalist architecture on TV: In the GorgesAGYU, Evergreen and TBA joint commission and showcase, now online.

Nango, an artist and architect, and Bongo, a filmmaker and producer, are producing together Post-capitalist architecture on TV (PCA-TV), a themed series of videos exploring indigenous architecture, from Sami fishing huts to their nomadic environments, to defining, questioning and embodying decolonialism as a global manifestation. The television series began in 2020 following Nango’s journeys around northern Norway in an aging modified van, interviewing indigenous scientists, artists and architects, putting on camera performances and putting on shows for a live audience. There are currently six episodes that deal with different themes such as nomadism and flows, resource management, decolonization and architecture, and the history of the Gumpi (a mobile shelter used by reindeer herders).

In the Gorges is the first international production PCA TV, with the sixth episode set on the banks of the Don River in Toronto/Tkaronto, Canada. This edition continues the multidisciplinary format of the series, featuring interviews, performances, installations and public events that summarize and document the research, artwork and lifestyle of local artists and architects.

Throughout the episode, Nango and Bongo are introduced to important discussions regarding property rights, homelessness, and the heritage of colonial architecture on Turtle Island. These conversations take place in one of the city’s largest gorges – connecting the city center with the wild greenery of the northern part of the city – along the Don River, where PCA TV The team built a small cinema out of found objects and materials for the premiere screening of this part. In the episode, viewers meet local and international architects, scientists, activists, writers and artists, including Adrian Blackwell, Bonnie Devine, Ange Loft, Thomas Holland Eriksen, Lorraine Lam, Thomas Juell Christensen and Amish Morell, with artistic contributions from Kuza Curley, Dayna Danger , Fortunato Durutti Marinetti, Andaris Rimpi, and Archer Pechawis.

PCA TV is emblematic of Nango’s relational and improvisational approach to art creation, which starts socially and then merges into skill sharing and the development of knowledge-sharing platforms. Engaging with indigenous peoples in the regions where Nango works is an integral part of his methodology, learning local history through interactions with artists, writers and architects. One year after its production and first show, In the Gorges will be available for viewing on the websites of the co-commissioners and co-hosts AGYU, EvergreenAND TBA.

Joar Nango is a process artist, architect, builder, publisher and host working within the temporary nature of sculpture, performance and architecture. He is Sami, belongs to the indigenous people of Sápmi, a traditional Sámi territory, lives and works in Tromsø, Norway. Nango has exhibited widely, most recently presenting a major solo exhibition at the Bergen Kunsthall, and has participated in exhibitions at the National Gallery of Canada, Tensta Konsthall, the Chicago Architecture Biennale, and Documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens. He brings girjumpiSámi Architecture Library, for the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

Ken Or Bongo is a film director, cinematographer and editor. He comes from the Sami village of Guovdageaidnu and is a graduate of the Nordland Art and Film School in Kabelvåg. https://www.evergreen.ca/evergreen-brick-works/evergreen-public-art/public-art-projects/joar-nango-post-capitalist-architecture-tv-ravine-sessions/Other credits include one episode miniseries television Who is calling? (2020) and short films Ara Marumaru (2018) and Biegga savkala duoddariid duohken lea soames (2007).

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https://www.evergreen.ca

New directions may emerge

Helsinki Biennale 2023 is pleased to share the 29 international artists and collectives taking part in the second edition, New directions may emerge curated by Joanna Krys and produced by the HAM Art Museum in Helsinki. The biennial features around 50% of new commissions and site-specific works that address some of the pressing issues of our time, including environmental damage, political conflict and the impact of technology.

This year, the central location of the biennale on the island of Vallisaari in the Helsinki archipelago will put a special emphasis on outdoor art. In addition, a 20-minute ferry ride away, artwork stretches across several mainland locations as well as online.

Among the participants of the Biennale in Helsinki 2023 are e.g

Matti Aikio (Sápmi)*, Ahmed Al-Nawas & Minna Henriksson (Finland)*, Dineo Seshee Bopape (South Africa), Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley (UK/Germany), Golden Snail Opera (Anna Tsing, Yen-ling Tsai , Isabelle Carbonell & Joelle Chevrier (Taiwan/France/USA), Alma Heikkilä (Finland)*, INTERPRT (Norway)*, Keiken (UK)*, Sonya Lindfors (Cameroon/Finland)*, Lotta Petronella (Cameroon/Finland) * , Finland)*, Asunción Fat Mills (Spain), Tuula Närhinen (Finland), PHOSphate (Sahrawi/Finland), Diana Policarpo (Portugal), Sepideh Rahaa (Iran/Finland), Bita Razavi (Finland/Iran/Estonia), RED FOREST (Ukraine/UK/USA/Mexico/Germany/Finland/South Africa)*, Remedies (Sasha Huber & Petri Saarikko) (Switzerland/Finland)*, Tabita Rezaire (France), Emilija Škarnulytė (Lithuania)*, Yehwan Song (South Jenna Sutela (Finland), Suzanne Treister (UK), Adrian Villar Rojas (Argentina)* and Zheng Mahler (Hong Kong).

*An asterisk indicates a new commission.

For New directions may emergenew commissions explore alternative ways of living and understanding the world while envisioning various potential futures.

Adrian Villar Rojas will present a site-specific sculptural work, From the End of Imagination series (2023). Inspired by the Argentine hornero bird – which builds its nests out of mud, straw and rubble, adapting them to man-made surroundings – Villara Rojas’ new, otherworldly forms will be scattered across the island of Vallisaari, attached to trees, rocks and buildings. For this iteration, the sculptures were designed using a combination of software collectively known as “Time Engine”.

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley invites guests to take part in a fictional performance and installation exploring the speculative mythology of Black trances from the island of Vallisaari. Visitors are invited to explore Vallisaari and meet various characters along the way in the form of physical sculptures, while the online counterpart presents the personal stories of these characters, bringing their fictional stories to life.

Emilia Škarnulytė new film installation hypoxia draws inspiration from the Baltic Sea. The work meditates on extinction, future archaeology, and deep time, exploring the ocean basin from an “alien archaeological perspective” to reconstruct the mythologies and beliefs of the past and present.

He is an artist himself Matti Aikio presents a new multi-channel video and sound installation. Aikio practice focuses on the historical treatment of the Sami people and the appropriation of indigenous identity. As part of the biennial, Aikio raises issues related to the use of natural resources, nature conservation, energy production without fossil fuels and human relations with other life forms.

A collective of artists Keiken new work Ángel Yokai Atā, includes both physical and digital elements: a soundtrack that creates an ambient backdrop for Lime Tree Avenue on the island; a carved house on the water’s edge for “angels and ghosts” and an interactive online experience that will allow viewers to virtually enter a ghost house and enter a speculative new world.

As of spring 2023, Arja Miller will become the new director of the Helsinki Biennale and HAM Helsinki Art Museum, moving from her previous position as chief curator at the EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art. Miller’s comments:

“I am proud that the Helsinki Biennale, a relatively young representative of the art world, is leading the way in environmentally responsible and socially sustainable values. The artists and works of art participating in this second edition respond directly to the world around us, using the forward-looking vision that lies at the heart of the biennale itself. We hope the audience will be encouraged to explore how art and artists can give us a new perspective on the global challenges we face.”

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https://helsinkibiennial.fi/en

Rum Vävda, Sweden’s first national augmented reality exhibition

Woven rooms (Woven places) is Sweden’s first national augmented reality exhibition. The project features ten virtual public works of art in nearly half of Sweden’s municipalities that are transforming the perception of urban space through a variety of interventions, from sculptural social networks to reindeer hordes and water spirits, shaped by local climate data. The exhibition can be viewed in over 130 locations across Sweden on the Vävda rum app from May 20 to September 30, 2023.

The works, created by ten contemporary artists from Sweden, use the latest technological advances in augmented reality, scalable network infrastructure and similar technologies to create an immersive experience that goes beyond anything previously done in the field. A woven room aims to create shared experiences in public space, focusing on what unites us and unites us. Visitors have the opportunity to rediscover their own surroundings and discover new perspectives on familiar places through exciting and thought-provoking experiences on topics such as the environment, community, storytelling, the body, aging and the threats and potential of technology in shaping ourselves and our surroundings.

Each graphic is adapted to a public space, such as a square, fountain or empty lot. In the participating municipalities, one or more local arts and cultural associations have placed ten works of art in appropriate public spaces where they can be viewed in augmented reality. The artworks are interactive and several are virtually interconnected, allowing visitors in different locations to interact with each other.

With around 620 member associations and a nationwide network of exhibition organizers, the Riksförbundet Sveriges Konstföreningar (National Association of Swedish Art Societies) strives to make contemporary art accessible to everyone, regardless of where they live. A woven room is part of their 50th anniversary and creates an opportunity for intergenerational encounters, bringing together local and regional art and cultural life across the country. The project is also exploring new infrastructure for large-scale exhibition formats with a minimal ecological footprint and high dissemination potential.

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To combine: http://vavdarum.se/

After Future (SM BNGRZ Rework 2)

Further down the line is pleased to announce its inaugural exhibition After Future (SM BNGRZ Rework 2) by an American artist Tony Cola.

Further Down the Line is a new contemporary visual arts space and exhibition program in Liverpool, UK, founded by curator and writer Adam Carr. Held at Aigburth Railway Station, the ‘Further Down the Line’ exhibitions are displayed in a display case located in the station’s waiting room, which has a distinctive Merseyrail yellow colour. It is open to visitors 7 days a week during exhibitions.

Tony Cokes exhibition, After Future (SM BNGRZ Rework 2), consists of a new work of the same title. Comes from SM BNGRZ (2021), a video of the meaning, ambitions and dreams of (queer) club culture in post-pandemic times, partly based on a book by Rainald Goetz To be impressed by. Presented both in a new format and in a new context, the new piece offers further contemplation and a renewed look at notions of language, aesthetics and time.

The exhibition extends the practice of Coca-Cola, which has studied media and pop culture for more than three decades and explored how both are containers for the political ideologies that create, shape and influence communities. A long-running thread of inquiry has been aspects of race and identity, often using a video of found images, text, and seemingly unrelated color slides. His work spanned a range of sources as diverse as Public Enemy, William Burroughs, Morrisey, Drake and Édouard Glissant.

Exhibition After Future (SM BNGRZ Rework 2) is kindly supported by Felix Gaudlitz from Vienna, Austria. In-kind support for “Further Down the Line” and its exhibition program comes from Merseyrail. Liverpool John Moores University, where Adam Carr is a lecturer in curating and contemporary art, is providing additional funding.

About Tony Coke

Tony Cokes (born 1966, Richmond, Virginia) lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island, where he is a professor in the Department of Contemporary Culture and Media at Brown University. His work is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh; Pompidou Center in Paris; FRAC Lorraine, Metz; the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; Kunsthallen, Copenhagen; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York Museum of Modern Art, among others.

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To combine: https://www.furtherdowntheline.com/