Tsekh Otdelki

Opening of the project on November 19 at 19.00 

The purpose of the digital residence "Digital AIR" is the creation of new international art projects without reference to the epidemiological situation.

The Digital AIR virtual residence project is created by the Factory together with the APXIV group, which owns the curatorial concept of the project. Participation in the residence "Digital AIR" is a reaction to the global digitalization in the field of culture and art, as well as an attempt to develop new art forms and practices for the presentation of contemporary art. In the process of creating a virtual residence, the curators digitized three exhibition and studio halls of the Fabrika CTI and formed a new ecosystem at the intersection of digital and material art, in which artists from different countries will be able to work.

The first project shown as part of the Digital AIR digital residency will be the exhibition and play XR project of the APXIV research group "re:Beuys". The project is dedicated to the famous German artist and one of the main theorists of postmodernism, Joseph Beuys, whose birth this year marks 100 years. The XR project of the APXIV group explores the myth of Joseph Beuys and his legend about the fall on the Crimean field and magical healing by shamanic practices.

The viewers will have an interactive experience of living a new myth in a phygital space that connects the real and the virtual. This experience includes both interaction with installations, photographs and video materials, as well as with the artists themselves (and even with the revived Joseph Beuys) and other spectator players in the virtual and physical space of the Factory.

The project will open simultaneously in several digital and real dimensions: on November 19 at 19.00 in the Edel Extra Gallery in Nuremberg (Germany), the Tsekh Otdelki of Fabrika in Moscow (Russia) and the metaverse without borders.

On March 16, 1944, a Luftwaffe military plane crashed near the village of Znamenka in the Crimea. The future world-famous artist Joseph Beuys is on the plane. It is this moment that becomes key in his myth of rebirth. Beuys himself recalled: “The last thing I remember was that it was already too late to jump, too late to open a parachute ... The plane crashed into the ground, and this saved me, although I received injuries to the bones of my face and skull ... Then the tail turned over and I was completely buried in the snow. The Tatars found me a day later. I remember the voices, they said "Water", the felt from the tents, and the strong smell of lard and milk. They covered my body in fat to help it regain warmth and wrapped me in felt to keep me warm.”

The myth created by Boyce contains numerous inaccuracies. On January 5, 2021, the APXIV research team went to the Crimean peninsula on an expedition to the site of the Beuys plane crash, with the goal of exploring the "Beuys myth". During the expedition, the APXIV group determined the exact point of the crash. The study took place in several stages: 4 rites of attunement, interviewing relatives of eyewitnesses of the fall, sampling of land and tactile analysis of soil and water, reconstruction of the fall using an unmanned aerial vehicle, ablution in the weakly radioactive springs of the Novaya Zhizn village.

During the expedition to the Crimea, the APXIV research group studied and rethought the famous Beuys myth, considering it from different angles. The results and conclusions of the APXIV group's research will be presented in the re:Beuys XR gaming project.

The project is funded by the International Fund for Cultural and Educational Organizations 2021 of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Cultural Center. Goethe and other partners.

Project partners:
8xr.io
Goethe Institute in Moscow

Funded by the International Fund of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Goethe-Institut in Moscow and other partners: www.goethe.de/hilfsfonds

Dates: November 19 - 30, 2021
Address: Perevedenodskiy pereulok 18, Tsekh Otdelki

APXIV is a self-organized group of artists. Created in Moscow in 2016 by graduates of the Institute of Contemporary Art (ISI), the BAZA Institute and the Rodchenko School. In 2021, the group includes: Katya Granova, Lika Gomiashvili, Nikita Kaem, Olga Klimovitskaya, Sofia Ovchinnikova, Danya Orlovsky, Vladimir Savostin, Anastasia Soboleva and Ya Nzi. The practice of the APXIV group is focused on the development of a new artistic language and interdisciplinary projects in which both artists and viewers can actively participate.