Digital AIR
What is Digital AIR Program?
Digital AIR is a virtual residency program made together with the APXIV art group and 8XR platform to create new ways of cultural communication that more accurately meet the needs of the changed world.
Curators digitized the three main exhibition venues of CCI Fabrika (Olivie, Arthaus, Tsekh Otdelki) and formed a new eco-system at the intersection of digital and material art, in which artists from different countries and backgrounds can work. This project allows, on the one hand, to build resuming art residences in the new world using existing heritage of Fabrika, and on the other hand, continue supporting artists and cultural collaborations.
The German team of curators Edel Extra and the Danish curator Theodor Præst Nymark Jensen were invited to participate in the first iteration of the project in 2021.
re:Beuys. APXIV group, 2021. courtesy Digital AIR
What is 8XR?
8XR platform is a metaverse cross-chain graphic engine. Artists who are using it can mint spaces on any integrated chain from the proposed list. It is possible to use web3 assets that already minted to alter the artworks and artistic universe. Since 2021, 8XR and Fabrika worked together with the artists from Brazil, Germany, Danmark, Kazakstan, Switzerland and Russia.
How does the residency work?
We invite artists to take part in the Digital AIR in order to create a discursive platform and community built on mutual respect and interest in the digital practices of contemporary art. The work in the group is based on the “building a common” principle and consists of a series of thematic and curatorial zoom meetings, during which participants discuss the theme of the residency and the projects that they want to implement.
Also, meetings with the technical team of the 8XR platform are organized for the participants, where everyone can get technical support on the implementation of their project in the digital universe. Each participant of the residence will have administrative access to the platform for the duration of the residency.
For residents, a budget for the production of virtual work (creation of a three-dimensional object/budget for assets) and a small fee are assumed.
For more info write at air@fabrikacci.com
Projects of 2021
re:Beuys
Artists: APXIV group
The project is dedicated to the famous German artist and one of the main theorists of postmodernism, Joseph Beuys, who was born exactly 100 years ago. The XR-project of the APXIV group is based on the personal myth of Joseph Beuys about the fall of his plane on the Crimean field and miraculous healing by local "shamans".
Curator: Theodor Nymark
Artists: Emilie Iman, Morten Knudsen, Amanda Del Valle, Melanie Kitti, Rolf Nowotny, Amitai Romm, Emilie Bausager, Astrid Svangren, Kirstine Bjerre, Sofus Keiding, Rowda Abdirahman, Thor Kazuo, Tue Greenfort, Nils Plum, Fafaya Mogensen, Frej Volander, Claus Haxholm, Bing Qing Dong, Vitaly Bezpavlov, Gunk Spore, Emil Elg.
The artists and the curator Theodor Nymark reflect on the theme of "trend" by examining the etymological history of the word and its relationship to the ecological concept of nature's cyclical nature.
Curators: Edel Extra (Lana Novikova and Franka Walser)
The art project "Digital AIR: going live" is a response to the activation of digital systems, in which accessibility, not presence, determines digital liveness/digital life. "Digital AIR: going live" explores the intersection and interaction of analog and digital/virtual realities: How machines read human-written texts available on the Internet and convert them into synthetic speech (machine tongue); What path do audio and video materials go through in the process of digital processing and appear in the virtual space as a “fingerprint” of a real person (Anna ADC); what is the interactive potential of digital objects (Irrlicht (ghostlight)); How digital groups appear and change, representing an autonomous collective mind (Follow the fisch!); Who or what will determine the possibility of control in an artificially created world (Times - 1); How material objects are transformed in virtual reality (Tiger 14, Gebanne: AIR, Architalk, YOU ARE HEARD II); What is the progressive potential of the digital transformation of the classical music genre (Circle).
Digital AIR 2022
Since February 2022, the issue of cultural interaction has ceased to be the main agenda. The common discussion "how to work together?" was complemented by questions about the ethics of continuing one's own activity and possible means of articulating one's position in the language of art. We have lost common ground, and more than ever we feel the need to find ways to keep talking to each other, even in times of catastrophe.
DIGITAL AIR 2022 THEME: LIFE-SIZE MODEL
Pandemic, self-isolation, several lockdowns, travel bans transformed our common experience, changed our relationships with people, the territory around us and ourselves. In a situation of vacuum, we created our own reality, in which something familiar – for instance, the space of Fabrika – would receive a time-appropriate entity.
What is this space today – an independent environment or a replica created to compensate?
How does it change a historical building of Fabrika, which served as a founding platform for virtuality and which is now reduced to a system of abstract signs? How can we work with the theme of memory in the mediated digital world? And what do the memory and this architectural monument occur – an abstraction from the past or a myth that we do not get tired of reproducing?
Residence dates: October – February 2023
Programme curator: Christina Pestova (CCI Fabrika)
Technical curator: Mark Korshakov (8XR)
Assistant curator: Maria Styablina
Participants of the Digital AIR 2022:
- Полина Enuvesta (Croatia)
- Vladislav Dovgopyaty (Russia)
- Sonata Rayimkulova (Kyrgystan)
- Ruth Baettig (Switzerland)
- Lynne Kouassi (Switzerland)
The programme is supported by:
