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Olia Lialina
Best Effort Network, 2015/2020

http://best.effort.network

Net artwork. Courtesy of the artist

In the gray fog of the screen, we see a carousel spinning and the artist is riding it. She slides off, pushes herself further, and so on, circle after circle. Sometimes we see her, sometimes she disappears. In fact, what we see is a literal illustration of how data is transmitted over computer networks. The simplest way to transmit information is in blocks or sets. When the source sends a data set, the router reads off where to forward it. Crashes sometimes occur and sets are lost or returned to the sender. They are requested again and sent again. It is like an online store that sends purchases via Russian Post Service. However, it is difficult for the user to see how this system works. And in Lialina’s work, this process is as clear as possible. While we are looking at the carousel, we receive all our data sets. But as soon as another user opens the project on their device, the data goes to them. Then our device asks for data again, and the artist returns. This, of course, is not so much about the operating principles of communication networks, but about how information is distributed in our world of politics, consumerism, and social networks: as soon as information leaves the sender, they lose control and responsibility over it.

Olia Lialina (Russia), a media artist, new media theorist, one of the pioneers of net art. She has been actively working with net art since the 1990s and used herself as a model for a GIF-image. Her works were exhibited at the New Museum (New York), Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Whitechapel Gallery (London), HeK (Basel) and other institutions. She founded one of the first web-galleries, Art Teleportacia. She is a co-founder and curator of the “One Terabyte of Kilobyte Age.” She is a professor at Merz Academy (Stuttgart).

Tanya Akhmetgalieva
A Day Full of Hope, 2018

Single-channel video installation, 9’5”. Sound: Viktor Mazin. The video was produced during an art residency at La Cité internationale des arts, Paris, with the support of Institut Français de Russie in St. Petersburg. Courtesy of the artist

In 1923, Sergey Eisenstein published his article “The Montage of Attractions,” in which he talked about a new cinematic method: images are dissected into fragments and then arranged by the filmmaker in the order and rhythm he needs so as to evoke the desired emotional effect in the viewer. In 1924, Fernand Leger filmed his “Mechanical Ballet,” where the movement of various mechanisms or simply rhythmically changing images of various objects appear as a kind of dance without people. In her video, Tatyana Akhmetgalieva uses editing techniques that refer the viewer precisely to the cinematic experiments of the 1920s, and literally shows us a dancing fairground attraction, a carousel of unnatural acid colors that disturbs the mind, transforms and evokes an experience of a hallucinogenic trance, amplified by harsh mechanical sound.

Tanya Akhmetgalieva (Russia), an artist working with drawing, painting, video, installation. She participated in the collateral events of the Venice Biennale (2017) and Manifesta (2014). Her works were exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (Helsinki), The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow), State Russian Museum (Saint Petersburg), The Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova Museum (Turku) among others. She was nominated for The Sergey Kuryokhin Award (Russia, 2015), and became a finalist of the Kandinsky Prize (Russia, 2010).

Katherine Liberovskaya and Ranjit Bhatnagar
SpinOptique, 2018

Single-channel video installation, HD, 4’30”. Sound (glass optical sound disks and spinning): Ranjit Bhatnagar. Courtesy of the artist

Another “Mechanical Ballet” with bright yellow glass discs rotating on a scarlet turntable. First, we hear the noise of their friction, then a whistle, then a melody that may seem close to traditional Indian music. Then, the spinning discs themselves begin to look like dancers in bright clothes. But these are still just glass discs that accelerate their rotation and appear white, and the mechanical sound of their contact.

Katherine Liberovskaya (Canada/USA), PhD, a video and media artist. She produces video and music performances which have been presented around the world, including MOMA PS1 (New York), The Museum of Arts and Design (New York), The National Center for Contemporary Arts (Moscow), The Beirut Art Center, etc. She has received over 30 grants and arts awards in Canada, USA and France. She curates and organizes the Screen Compositions evenings at Experimental Intermedia (New York), the OptoSonic Tea salons at Diapason (New York) and in various nomadic locations in New York, North America and Europe.

Ranjit Bhatnagar (USA), a sound artist. He works in music, installation, and text, with a particular interest in algorithmic techniques and in improvisation at all stages of creation. His works have been exhibited across the United States and in Europe. Bhatnagar worked with Ad Hoc Art Collective to build a large scale musical installation in Denmark and with New Orleans Airlift to build several tiny musical houses. He is an author of a book of algorithmic poetry, “Encomials: Sonnets from Pentametron” (2018).

William Hooker and Phill Niblock
HookerNiblock, 2015—2019

Single-channel video installation, HD, 17’49”. Video: Phill Niblock. Music: William Hooker. Courtesy of the artists

William Hooker is a jazz musician and drummer, he was born in 1946 and moved to New York in the 1970s. He collaborated with legendary musicians at legendary clubs, such as the Knitting Factory. And Phill Niblock, who moved to New York in 1958, started out by photographing jazz musicians in clubs. Only years later he himself became a composer and sound artist. It is surprising that two jazz connoisseurs living in the same city met only recently, in Riga of all places, and decided to do something together. Hooker performed a drum solo, and Niblock decided to shoot a video for it, but the question was in finding the right images for such music. Maybe the answer is to come closer to the musician, so close that the cymbals turn into an abstract image, lose color, dissolve in sound and rhythm. In any case, this work should be listened to from beginning to end; like with a true musical piece, do not think that you have already understood it from the first minutes.

Phill Niblock (USA), an intermedia artist using music, film, photography, video, and computers. His music and intermedia performances have been presented at venues across the world, including The Museum of Modern Art (New York), The Kitchen (New York), the Center Pompidou (Paris), BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts (Brussels), Institute of Contemporary Art (London), etc. He served as director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation for avant-garde music based in New York with a branch in Ghent, and curator of the foundation’s record label XI. Niblock was honoured with the Foundation for Contemporary Arts John Cage Award (2014).

William Hooker (USA), a drummer, composer and poet. He creates works that range from jazz and “new” music to experimental genres. He released over 70 CDs as a leader. He performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (New York), The Wadsworth Atheneum (Hardford), The David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center (New York), Queen Elizabeth Hall (London) and other venues all over the world. He has also presented his work at the Edgefest Jazz Festival, The Vision Festival, JVC Jazz Festival, Experimenta Argentina and others.

The Blue Soup art group
Sodden Creeper, 2019

Single-channel video installation, 11’34”. Features music by Alexander Tsfasman. Courtesy of the artists

A certain dark entity, a reptile, a worm, or maybe an alien monster, gets wet under the gray pouring rain to the sound of jazz. Waves run through it, like tremors or ripples, either caused by the cold, or by pleasure.

The Blue Soup art group (Russia) consists of Daniel Lebedev, Alexey Dobrov, Valery Patkonen, Aleksandr Lobanov, who work with video art and computer animation. Their works were presented at the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum (New York), Gwangju Museum of Art, Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst – M HKA, (Antwerp), on Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach. They were awarded the Innovation Prize (Russia, 2007) in the category “Visual Art”.

Marnix de Nijs
Lost Dimension, 2020

Interactive installation. Sound: Boris Debackere. Co-producer: V2_lab, Rotterdam. Unity Development: Indago, Pawel Homenko, Plewiska. SPASM: Boris Debackere, Sebastian Frisch, Kasper Fangel Skov. Electronics: Yoana Buzova & Javier Lloret, Rotterdam. Courtesy of the artist

Clouds of white pixels on the black screen swirl before the viewer and form the outlines of houses and streets; the viewer walks through this endless city, further and further, forgetting that the panoramas unfolding are generated in Google Street View. And even if the artist wanted to say something else, the viewer cannot help but think that in times of impossibility of physical travel, the machine is able to provide everything, even the illusion of walking, instability, loss of balance, the depth of space from which one may never get back to the real world.

Marnix de Nijs (The Netherlands), an installation artist, a pioneer in researching the experimental use of media and technologies in art. His works have been widely exhibited at international art institutes, museums and festivals. Among his awards are The Witteveen+Bos Art+Technology Award (The Netherlands, 2005), Prix Ars Electronica (Austria, 2013, 2005, 2001), the Art Future Award (Taipei, 2000), honorable mentions of the Transmediale Award (Germany, 2000).

Bjørn Melhus, SUGAR
SUGAR, 2019

Single-channel video, 4K, 20’30”. Courtesy of the artist

In the near future, humanity has destroyed all possibility of life on the surface of the planet and gone underground. There is only one person left in this new world, living in his underground house, like in a cage, literally beating his head against the wall out of despair and repeating phrases from commercials in a mechanical voice. But he is in luck: a hot pink robot named SUGAR comes to his aid. The robot knows how to dance, empathize, feel happiness and has the desire to make others happy. The meeting of a man who looks like a mechanical toy and a machine capable of experiencing thinking and emotions turns into a tragic comedy about capitalism and consumption.

Bjørn Melhus (Germany/Norway), an artist realizing experimental short films, videos and installations. His works were screened at Tate Modern and the LUX (London), the Museum of Modern Art (MediaScope) (New York), Centre Pompidou (Paris), amongst others. His works were presented at solo and group shows at the Whitney Museum (New York), FACT Liverpool, Serpentine Gallery (London), Museum Ludwig (Cologne), ZKM Center for Art and Media (Karlsruhe) among others. He participated in the International Istanbul Biennial (2003). Since 2003, Bjørn Melhus has been a professor of Fine Arts and Virtual Realities at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. He lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

JODI (in collaboration with Guido Segni)
*pandemonium.today, 2020

Net artwork. Courtesy of the artists

http://pandemonium.today/

At the dawn of the Internet, the pioneers of net art realized that humanity was about to leave for the virtual world, and this world did not seem friendly or desirable to the artists. Since then, they have been waging a guerrilla war against the Internet, using system errors, viruses, and bugs. The computer gets into our head so we break the computer, so to speak. It is no coincidence that the title of their work speaks of Pandaemonium, which is the name of the capital of Hell in Milton’s poem “Paradise Lost.” For their online installation, the artists took user comments from the Reuters news organization website and changed all the vowels in them into Emojis. By clicking on them, the viewer plunges into information chaos.

JODI (Belgium/The Netherlands) is the duo of the artist collective – Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans who are pioneers of web art. JODI’s work is featured in most art historical volumes about electronic and media art and has been exhibited widely at venues such as documenta X (Kassel), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), ZKM Center for Art and Media (Karlsruhe), NTT InterCommunication Center (Tokyo), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Center for Contemporary Arts (Glasgow), Guggenheim Museum (New York) and Museum of the Moving Image (New York), among many others. They received a 1999 Webby Award. In 2014, JODI was awarded the inaugural Prix Net Art Award by Rhizome.

Almagul Menlibayeva in collaboration with Inna Artemova and German Popov
Ulugh Beg: Intrinsic Futuristic Machine of Central Asia, 2020

Trailer of the 10-channel video installation with sound and objects, 31 in. height, 50 in. diameter. Single-channel video, 13’. Surround sound: German Popov. Lahore Biennale 02 at PIA Planetarium, Lahore, Pakistan; curated by Hoor Al Qasimi. The artists express their gratitude for the support to: Polyeco Contemporary Art Initiative, Ifa Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Trust for Mutual Understanding, American-Eurasian Art Advisors, IADA International Art Development, Andakulova Gallery, Lahore Biennale. Courtesy of the artists. Almagul Menlibayeva © 2020

The ruler of Samarkand, the grandson of Tamerlane, Muhammad Taragay Ulugh Beg was an outstanding person, a mathematician, astronomer, and poet. State affairs sometimes distracted him from his favorite sciences, but Ulugh Beg still saw the creation of an observatory as the main goal of his life. It became one of the most important observatories in the Middle Ages, where one hundred greatest Arab scientists worked, creating a map of the stars in the sky and calculating the length of the calendar year. The artist turns his Samarkand observatory into an orbital observatory for measuring inhuman futures and possible worlds through the use of sonification.

Almagul Menlibayeva (Germany/Kazakhstan), an artist who works mostly with multi-channel video, photography and mixed media installation. She has been exhibited widely at venues such as Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst – M HKA (Antwerp), Queens Museum (New York), Stenersen Museum (Oslo), ZKM Center for Art and Media (Karlsruhe), University of California (San Diego), Center of Contemporary Art, Zamok Ujazdowskie (Warsaw), Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (Helsinki), Museo Universitario del Chopo (Mexico City), Kulturzentrum bei den Minoriten (Graz), Queensland Art Gallery (Brisbane). She lives and works in Germany and Kazakhstan.

Omer Fast
The Invisible Hand, 2018

Single-channel video installation, 11’30”. The Guangdong Times Museum and Vega Fang. Courtesy of the artist

Walking through the woods, a little boy sees a terrible white hand sticking out of the ground and wiggling its clawed fingers. There is a ring on the ground nearby. The brave boy puts the ring on his finger and runs away. Since then, his family has been finding money at their door each time they opened it. They paid off their debts and got out of poverty. The boy grew up, found himself a bride, but in the midst of the wedding celebration a ghost appeared, showing a wedding ring on its finger and claiming the groom. Laughed at and exiled, the dead girl cursed the traitor and all his relatives, and since then they were forced to always speak the truth, unable to lie even out of politeness. The old legend, retold by Omer Fast, quickly turns into social satire, and as a result, the film, which was produced for the Guangdong museum, was banned from screening in two days after the exhibition opening.

Omer Fast (Israel), a video artist. His works were featured in dOCUMENTA (13) (2012), the Whitney Biennial (2008, 2003), the Venice Biennale (2001) and were shown at Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), “la Caixa” Foundation (Madrid), STUK (Leuven), Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), etc. He was the recipient of the Jury Award at the Hamburg International Short Film Festival (2013), the Bucksbaum Award from the Whitney Museum of American Art (2008), etc. He was a nominee at Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (2014, 2011, 2010, 2008), Rotterdam International Film Festival (2012, 2013), Athens International Film Festival (2016) and others.

Martin Zet
SEE EVIL, HEAR EVIL, SCREAM AGAINST EVIL, 2018

Трехканальное видео, 50”. Отрывок из непрерывного воспроизведения. Демонстрировалось в центре современного искусства < rotor > (Грац, Австрия) в рамках выставки «Партизан просвещения». Предоставлено автором

Everyone remembers the Buddhist story of monkeys that do not hear, do not see, and do not speak about evil. They were laughed at and parodied back in the Japanese Middle Ages. And more so in our time, when it is generally understood that from any point of view everyone has their own truth, everything is relative, any manifestations and protests are likely to lead to even greater violence and terror. But can it be that our situation makes it even more important to proclaim that good and evil exist? And not just talk, but shout against evil!

Martin Zet (Czech Republic), a sculptor, visual and performance artist. He took part in many exhibitions and events in the Czech Republic as well as abroad, for example, at Drdova Gallery (Prague), National Gallery Prague, Gandy Gallery (Bratislava), Ex Teresa Arte Actual (Mexico City). He headed the Video Art Studio at the Department of Fine Arts at Brno University of Technology (2010–11).

Csaba Nemes
Let’s!, 2016

Single-channel video installation, 7’43”. Courtesy of the artist

There is a famous episode in Godard's “Band of Outsiders,” in which the heroes run through the entire Louvre in 9 minutes 43 seconds. Csaba Nemes’s characters line up in an embrace and run and jump through the building of the Hungarian National Gallery. It is not just another gallery, but a former royal palace, where history was made and which later turned into a repository of national memory. Today it is used to present history through art in the way the current government wants to see it. The young generation invades this space, physically appropriating it.

Csaba Nemes (Hungary), an artist. He uses different media like drawing, painting, video and photography. He participated in the Istanbul Biennial (1999), the São Paulo Biennale (1996). His works were exhibited at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Rijeka), Museum of Contemporary Art (Krakow), Kumu Art Museum (Tallinn), CACT-Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki. In 2013, he received the Leopold Bloom Prize (Hungary). He teaches at the Art Department of the University of Pécs (Hungary).

George Drivas
Laboratory of Dilemmas, 2019

Video installation, VR. “Laboratory of Dilemmas” was originally presented at the Greek Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2017 as the national representation of Greece. This is the VR-version of the original multichannel sound and video installation. For full credits of the project, check the project’s official site www.laboratoryofdilemmas.gr. Courtesy of the artist.

Aeschylus’s tragedy “The Suppliants” tells the story of the daughters of King Danaus, who arrive in Argos fleeing from their relatives forcing them into unwanted marriages. The girls seek asylum, and people of Argos are faced with a choice: to help the strangers or to think about their own safety in the face of girls’ persecutors. George Drivas sees the first ever ethical discussion of the refugees issue in this play and remakes it using contemporary material. In the original spatial installation, the viewer wanders through a black maze, discovering fragments of a film about an unfinished scientific experiment and listening to recordings of someone’s conversations. Charlotte Rampling plays the lead role in this installation (or is it a theatrical production?), and it is up to the viewer to decide what kind of story emerges from all the pieces. You can navigate by point and click on the indicated signs inside the picture and by using the mouse and arrows of your keybord.

George Drivas (Greece), a video artist and photographer. He participated in the Contemporary Art Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil (São Paulo, 2019–20), documenta 14 (Kassel) and represented Greece at the Venice Biennale (2017). His works were shown at such venues as MAXXI (Rome), the National Museum of Contemporary Art (Athens), Centre Pompidou (Paris) and such festivals as Athens International Film Festival, Transmediale Festival (Berlin), FILE Festival (São Paulo) and more, where he received multiple awards, including awards of the London Greek Film Festival (2010), the Moscow International Film Festival (2006).

Eve Sussman and Simon Lee
Chapter 12: "We were gonna be rich...", in which Bear and Tiger suffer rich disappointment, from the video installation No food No money No jewels, 2014

Single-channel video installation, 2’39”. Featuring: Cate Giordano, Pedro Osorio, Jimbo Blachly. Courtesy of the artists

This piece is unexpectedly created at the junction of two most dissimilar works: “Stalker” by Andrey Tarkovsky and “The House at Pooh Corner” by A.A. Milne. According to the artists, these works still have something in common, namely the idea of escape from reality, whether into a cozy forest thicket or into the alarming Zone. Anywhere, really, only to get away from everyday life. The project that grew out of this idea resembles either a theatrical performance or a split-screen film with many scenes and episodes. In the first one, we meet the heroes who will then go on a journey in search of the very Room that Tarkovsky’s characters never entered.

Eve Sussman (USA), an artist working with media and video. She participated in Whitney Biennial (2004), Istanbul Biennial (1997). Her works were exhibited in Kunsthalle Wien, Museum of Modern Art (New York), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Hamburger Bahnhof — Museum für Gegenwart (Berlin), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid) and other leading art institutions, as well as international film festivals.

Simon Lee (USA), a film director and installation artist. His works were shown at Poznan Biennale, Brooklyn Museum (New York), Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Tinguely Museum (Basel), The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), Rotterdam Film Festival, Moscow International Film Festival, and others.

Sergey Kishchenko
Duck Test, 2014–2020

Single-channel video installation, 8 episodes. Courtesy of the artist

On the territory of the former Likhachev Automobile Plant, someone dressed as a duck acts parts from “The Cherry Orchard,” appropriating all the characters at once, insisting that a change of eras is taking place both in the play and in his own industrial environment. In Chekhov’s work, the romantic landscape perishes under the onslaught of the age of machines; here, a gigantic factory is destroyed and abandoned, and industrial space is being captured by something else: perhaps, art?

Sergey Kishchenko (Russia), an artist working with installation, performance and new media. His artistic research is focused on big narratives, construction of history and interaction with historical memory. He received The Sergey Kuryokhin Award in the category “Best Visual Art Project” (Russia, 2017) and was nominated for the Innovation Prize (Russia, 2018).

Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau
Scavengers, 2020

Single-channel video installation, 5’55”. Developed for the TransArt Festival at Centro Trevi in Bolzano and supported by MEET Milano. Courtesy of the artists

Entomologists are not the only ones concerned with the problem of endangered bees and other insects, whose disappearance will lead to the collapse of the entire ecosystem, of which humanity is still a part. “Nature will take care of it,” has been the motto for a long time in our human society. But now we see that human-caused pollution leads to the almost collapse of our ecosystem. The work of Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau shows an artificial world, where insects have only human garbage left to feed on. The “Scavengers” insects try to clean up the human mess, and in an endless loop this process of pollution and restoration continues forever.

Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau (Austria/France), internationally renowned media artists, researchers and pioneers of interactive art. Their interactive computer installations were demonstrated worldwide, including ZKM Center for Art and Media (Karlsruhe), NTT InterCommunication Center (Tokyo), Cartier Foundation (Paris), Ars Electronica Center (Linz). Among their awards are the World Technology Award (UK, 2001), the Ovation Award of the Interactive Media Festival (USA, 1995), the Golden Nica of the Ars Electronica Award (Austria, 1994). They are professors and head the Interface Cultures program at the University of Art and Design in Linz.

Alexandra Dementieva
Twin Depths, 2018

Seven-channel video installation. Courtesy of the artist

Pondering ways to cope with all the dire consequences of human impact on the environment, the artist constructs another ecological utopia in this exhibition. Avoiding plastic bags, reducing greenhouse gases, switching to renewable energy sources are not enough. We need to return to the environment where we all came from, to the ocean. And build a new world there. This is what the artist did, starting with a seven-day performance, which later turned into a video installation. She tries to live her usual life under water; she goes on a date, listens to music, sweeps the bottom of the ocean, tries to sit on a chair. And obviously fails.

Alexandra Dementieva (Russia/Belgium), an artist working with video art and interactive installations. Her works were presented at various institutions, including The State Hermitage (St. Petersburg), Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, Centro de la Imagen (Mexico City), Neuberger Museum of Art (Purchase, New York), File Festival (São Paulo), and more. She is a professor at the Royal Academy of Arts in Brussels. She is one of the founders of iMAL – Center for Digital Cultures and Technology (Brussels). Since 2008, she has been an active participant of CYLAND MediaArtLab.

Miloš Vojtěchovský
Homeostasis: A Journey North, 2017

Single-channel video installation, 24’25”. Concept, editing, camera, sound design: Miloš Vojtěchovsky. Images: Michal Kindernay, Dominik Žižka, Miloš Vojtěchovský, Vladimír Turner, Lloyd Dunn. Editing: Ondřej Vavrečka. Production of the project “Frontiers of Solitude”: Dagmar Šubrtová, Miloš Vojtěchovský, Dana Recmanová. Produced by the Agosto Foundation. Courtesy of the artist

“A Journey North” was created as a part of the interdisciplinary project “Frontiers of Solitude.” The camera follows the way through the lignite regions of North Bohemia (Czech Republic) creating a portrait of a landscape. Throughout his way, the artist studied the influence of humanity on nature, and it is not difficult to guess what kind of influence this was: villages, from which only names remain since they were replaced by coal mines; the noise of factories that does not stop day and night, audible for many kilometers. But there also was something else: the lakes that have dried up and disappeared due to mining, eventually appear again and life returns there. Well, “homeostasis” is a system of an organism’s internal self-regulation, the ability to restore the damaged part and survive.

Miloš Vojtěchovský (Czech Republic), an artist, curator and journalist. He explores the relationship between art and technology, ecology, audio art with an emphasis on community collaborative projects. In 1995, he took up the post of curator of the Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art of the National Gallery Prague. Along with Roman Berka and Pavel Bednář he founded the Intermedia Institute (2007), whose activities are overseen by the Czech Technical University in Prague (ČVUT) and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (AMU). Since 2019 he is a member of the Civic Association Vasulka Kitchen Brno. He lives and works in Prague, the Czech Republic.

Rasa Šmite and Raitis Šmits
Atmospheric Forest, 2020–ongoing

VR point-cloud installation. Research: Rasa Smite in the framework of Ecodata–Ecomedia–Ecoaesthetics (2017–20) research project by The Institute of Aesthetic Practice and Theory, HGK FHNW (Basel, Switzerland). Research support: Swiss National Science Foundation. Scientific partners and data: WSL – Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape. Co-produced by the Ecodata Project Basel, the ZKM | Karlsruhe and RIXC, Riga. Courtesy of the artists

It is actually a myth that forests are the lungs of the planet. Trees are living beings like us, they not only convert carbon dioxide into the oxygen we need, but they themselves breathe, that is, they release almost a fifth of the absorbed air back into the atmosphere. In particular, pines emit gases that react with various chemicals that end up in the air due to human activities, and unwittingly become one of the biggest sources of air pollution. Climate changes affect pine excretion, and what pines excrete, in turn, affects the climate. This dependence was studied by scientists in the framework of the Ecodata project, implemented in the ancient Swiss forest of Pfünwalde, and the artists figured out how to present the results of this study, the mutual dependence of forest and climate.

Rasa Šmite and Raitis Šmits (Latvia), artists and researchers working at the intersection of art, science and emerging technologies since the mid-1990s. They are key founders of RIXC Center for New Media Culture in Riga, curators of RIXC Gallery, organizers of RIXC Art and Science festival, and chief editors of Acoustic Space. Rasa ?mite, PhD, is Professor in the New Media Art program at Liepaja University and Senior Researcher at Art Research Lab (MPLab.lv). Raitis ?mits, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Art Academy of Latvia (2015). Their artworks were shown in Ars Electronica Center (Linz), HeK (Basel), Van Abbe Museum (Eindhoven) and others. They received Prix Ars Electronica (1998), National Award of Excellence in Culture (2016).

Kenji Ouellet
I am One, 2016

Single-channel video installation, 20’38”. Courtesy of the artist

Kenji Ouellet's film shows a gray and dense landscape of contemporary Tokyo. Neither the city nor its inhabitants are easily recognizable. The overall scale of the architecture makes the people look insignificant. The artist juxtaposes these images with quotes about individuality and uniqueness from a wide range of personalities. The title of the work can be read in different ways (for example, “I am unique, one of a kind”) or it can suggest the unity of the self, which, in the end, appears to be an illusion.

Kenji Ouellet (Canada/Germany), a video and performance artist, also a pianist. His work has won awards and been shown internationally, including at the Zendai Museum of Modern Art (Shanghai), Weserburg Museum of Modern Art (Bremen), Cologne Art Film Biennial, Strange Screen Festival (Thessaloniki), Le Havre Biennale, Media Art Friesland (the Netherlands), European Media Art Festival (Germany), Videoex (Switzerland), etc. He was a recipient of the Bremen Video Art Award and the Cast & Cut Film grant, among others.

Shelly Silver
frog spider hand horse house, 2013—2017

Single-channel video installation, 50’. Courtesy of the artist

The artist is fascinated by observing all living things: a bat, a frog, a horse, a pianist, a teenage choir, senior citizens practicing tai chi; her gaze is attracted by their strength and the will to live that is equally inherent in “nature” and in “humanity.” Shelly Silver tries to capture this earthly magic with the help of man-made magic, the magic of film and the artist’s touch.

Shelly Silver (USA), an artist working with film, video, and photography. Her films have been broadcasted by BBC (UK), PBS (USA), Arte (Germany), Planète+ (France) and others. Her works have been exhibited at festivals and institutions including Kunsthalle Wien, Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Modern Art (New York), The Kitchen (New York), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Tate Modern (London), The Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), The London ICA, Berlin Film Festival and others. She is Associate Professor of Visual Arts, School of the Arts, Columbia University.