Artwork / ZENZ(A)I
Artwork from Barcelona Producció
- Abstract: The sayings of the time represent the cultural heritage of a changing landscape and time, and also exemplify the search for models, for generations, to understand natural phenomena and thus predict the future. Predictions that are based on probability theories, but also on imaginative ability.
ZENZ(A)I is a neural network that processes information from the outside world and learns from it. Artificial intelligence creates meteorological sayings from existing meteorological data and sayings, and thus confronts principles such as failure, vagrancy, and open, untargeted discovery. The project addresses issues related to the configuration and functioning of common sense and the senses of artificial intelligence involved in the perception and understanding of reality.
- Biography: Anna Pascó (Barcelona, 1990) has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona and the Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, in the class of Olaf Nicolai. She has exhibited at the Kunsthalle Kempten, the Britta von Rettberg Gallery, the Kunstarkaden München Museum, the Kunstverein München and the Eingen + Art Lab Berlin, among others. In 2020 she publishes Stickers with the publishing house Bomdia Berlin. She has received the Hans-Rudolf-Stiftung scholarship, has been a beneficiary of the Ambartgent project and has been awarded the Windmann Kunstpreis, 15HOCH2 or the Landeshauptstadt München visual arts prize, as well as being awarded at the XXI Biennial of Catalan Contemporary Art. The piece is part of the Staff Stiftung collection and the Stadtmuseum München.
Artwork / Epiphany
Artwork from Barcelona Producció
- Abstract: Epiphany is a project that spreads like wildfire. The app of the same name to deeply touch what we are always touching. The sculptural pieces are made of materials related to the screens of mobile devices, mirrors and costumes that were the plastic research for Instagram filters.
Plasma as a mutable and transitional state. Ghost like an ectoplasmic sheet, between mucus and appearance, and cell phone screens are often greasy.
App: Epiphany, Unity, 2021.
Sculptures: Phantom plasma, mixed media. 2021
- Biography: Ariadna Parreu (Reus, 1982) She has been selected in different calls such as Barcelona Producció (projecte deslocalitzat, 2016), INJUVE (visual arts, 2011, 2010 and 2008) or the Amposta Art Biennial (2020, 2016 and 2012 ). She has been a resident of Hangar (2012-2014).
She has exhibited individually at Bha-Phanein (Sala Muncunill, Terrassa, 2018) and collectively at Mercury Splash (Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, 2015) or Factotum (Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, 2014). She has co-authored the inaugural Massana School exhibition, Amorf etern (2017).
She has been a juror in various competitions: La Escocesa (2017), Sala d’Art Jove (2019), the Ciutat de Barcelona Prize (2019) and the ADI Cultura Awards (2020).
Artwork / Chemical Ecosystem
- Abstract: Olfactory communication is a constant among living beings, however it is more evident in plants and animals. Between human beings, the exchange of audiovisual information is growing exponentially, even activities where chemistry is (or was) essential, such as flirting or seducing, are being replaced by virtual dating applications. In the recent digitization of our activities, is there room for other types of stimuli and communication that are not exclusively audiovisual?
Chemical Ecosystem reflects on the function of smell today, drawing inspiration from inter-species olfactory communication. It invites the public to observe how its presence influences the environment and affects the beings that inhabit it, listening to the olfactory messages that these inhabitants emit.
Ten synthetic organisms hang from a circular cover. They have fans that diffuse odors, small speakers emitting sounds, and gas sensors capturing the composition of the surrounding air. The sounds vary dynamically according to the data of the composition of the air, affected by the human presence.
- Biography: Formed at the ArtScience department of the KABK (NL) where she developed her passion for merging science and art through perception, Yolanda Uriz creates multi-sensory experiences. With a particular interest in the proximity senses (smell, taste and touch), she concentrates her research on the synesthetic connections between sound and smell. She uses digital tools like Pure Data to generate sound or Arduino to interact with the analog world, combined with DIY perfumery or messing around in the Fab-Lab. Her work has been presented at festivals like Sonic Acts (NL), WRO Media-Art Biennale (PL), STRP (NL), SPARK (USA), Todays Art (NL/RU), Transmediale (GR), November Music (NL), In-Sonora (ES), etc.
This project has been awarded with the ISEA2022 Barcelona Grant by Fundación Ernesto Ventós / International Nasevo Prize
Artwork / Water drop viewer (indoor version, 2022)
- Abstract: Water drop viewer is an analog interactive indoor installation that uses human energy to create an intimate relationship between the viewer and a modest, beautiful, unique and fragile drop of water. The installation aims to promote a deep contemplative state that allows you to connect with a drop of water as an essential element of life and as a world in itself. After thirty years of dedication to electronic art, with this work I am forced to rethink my own relationship with the media and nature, with mediation and experience.
Interaction: When looking through the eye piece, the viewer sees what she perceives as a suspended wobbling water drop. In fact, she is always looking at different drops of water in the same position, revealed by the flashing light coming in intermittently through the shutter. The mechanism draws an analogy between the frame of a film and the drop in a stream of water. The installation works thanks to the physical interaction of visitors, who can operate the water pump and the bicycle light (dynamo) using the pedal of a century-old sewing machine. I believe that by incorporating a treadle mechanism, I can involve visitors in a physical repetitive action that can potentiate the meditative state that I am willing to convey.
- Biography: Roc Parés (Mexico City, 1968). Interactive communication artist and researcher. Doctor in Audiovisual Communication (UPF, 2001) and graduate in Fine Arts (UB, 1992). Associate Professor and Researcher of the Department of Communication of Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona.
He has collaborated with dozens of artists, scientists, engineers, institutions and groups with whom he has promoted some pioneering platforms in electronic art. Parés’ works are characterized by poetic and critical experimentation with digital media. His interactive installations, robotic and telematic performances have been presented and exhibited internationally at the CCCB, Fundació Joan Miró, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Centro Cultural de Belém, Tate Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Centro Cultural de España en México, Ex Teresa Arte Actual, Laboratoire Paragraphe Université PARIS 8, Brandts Danmarks Mediemuseum, Centrale Montemartini, La Chambre Blanche Québec, Bòlit Centre d’Art Contemporani de Girona, among others.
Artwork / Especies I, II y III
- Abstract: This artwork is framed in the line thought of technodiversity, promoted by the philosopher Yuk Hui, which invites us to break with the monolithic vision of technological development and accept that there is a multiplicity of technologies and not a universal one.
Within this context, “Especies I, II y III” focuses on imagining the possibilities of evolution of technologies in an alternative way. Believing in the existence of technodiversities implies that technology becomes part of the cultural plane and that in the future, perhaps, it will be considered part of the biodiversity of each community. Starting from this speculative assumption, this project questions whether we will be able to include artificial cognitive systems as part of the configuration of the world, accepting them as an independent species of conscious and sentient organisms.
Beyond questioning the technological resources necessary to develop artificial consciousness, this project wants to argue that its possibilities of existence also lie in a matter of philosophical attribution. To do so, the set of three robotic devices that configure this artwork are built from algorithmic structures inspired by philosophical principles that define possible existential, evolutionary, conscious and sensitive processes through the creative coding. They represent processes far from the simulation of the human, in search of the machinic condition itself.
This small inorganic ecosystem simulate, through physical-digital behaviors, processes that invite us to identify them as conscious organisms. They are dramaturgical devices staging a possible evolution of AI, imagining a possible integration of these systems in the future. The set is accompanied by a fictional audio story that narrates the process of evolution of the devices.
- Biography: Mónica Rikić, Barcelona 1986. Electronic artist and creative coder from Barcelona. She focuses her practice in code, electronics and non-digital objects for creating interactive projects often framed as experimental games. Her interest lies in the social impact of technology, human-machine coexistence and the reappropriation of technological systems and devices, to manipulate and rethink them through art. From educational approaches to sociological experimentation, her projects propose alternative ways of thinking about technology, robotics and artificial intelligence.
She has participated in different festivals around the world such Ars Electronica in Linz, Creative Tech Week in New York, Robotronica in Australia or FILE in Brazil, among others, and has also exhibited her works at local institutions such as the CCCB, Arts Santa Mónica or Caixaforum.
She has been awarded with the Catalan National Culture Award 2021, and also at the Japan Media Arts Festival, AMAZE Berlin, the Margaret Guthman Musical Competition in Atlanta and with a BBVA Foundation Leonardo grant. She has participated in artistic residencies at TAG in Montreal, EMARE in Australia, Medialab Prado in Madrid and Etopía in Zaragoza.
This project has been awarded with the ISEA2022 Barcelona Grant by DKV within the DKV Arteria programme
Artwork / Arrels
- Abstract: Anna Carreras’ work has a strong relationship to the Spanish landscape where she spends her time, and her piece in Social Codes, “Arrels,” connects drawing, code, and the environment through a cycle of growth and decay. While Anna looks to nature for the source of her work, she interprets and transforms her experience into carefully choreographed generative animation. In “Arrels,” growing tendrils the color of earth and sky collide in a vibrant dance. New growth in the arid soil overtakes the old, and the cycle continues.
Text by curator Casey Reas.
- Biography: Anna Carreras is a generative artist and creative coder based in Barcelona, Spain. She focuses her work on the use of generative algorithms, code and interactive technology as a means of communication and an experience generator.
She is interested in complexity that emerges from small simple behaviors, from the balance between order, patterns and randomness and the rules behind. She tries to capture the diversity and richness of complexity working with generative algorithms and visuals inspired by Mediterranean colors and culture.
She has developed and exhibited digital installations and generative art pieces at Feral File, Art Blocks curated, Endless Ways, Medialab Prado Madrid, Forum Barcelona 2004, Sónar Festival, MIRA Visual Arts Festival, Abandon Normal Devices Liverpool and Ignite San Francisco among others.
Artwork / d’Eco a Siringa
D’Eco a Siringa obtained a Ciutat de Barcelona 2020 Grant and a Research and Innovation grant from Generalitat de Catalunya.
- Abstract: D’Eco a Siringa is a sound and visual installation where resources close to artificial intelligence are applied to the composition of a musical and visual flow in continuous transformation, without formal resolving elements throughout the installation time, whatever its duration, dynamically built from a database accessible in the IP space, initially made up of materials obtained by reading words from world women’s literature, spoken by diverse female voices in as many languages as possible and constantly and dynamically maintained. At present, it contains sound samples from 60 languages.
Images are dynamically constructed from the graphic treatment of texts in various languages and alphabets, chosen according to spectral characteristics of sounds and procedures selected at variable time intervals. Its instantaneous behavior is reactive in real time to the general dynamics of sounds. Despite the continuous change in the sound and visual flow that is generated as a consequence of ethical-aesthetic reasons dictated by the need to construct works avoiding the traditional musical forms marked by patriarchy and influence them with structural characteristics of female voice, I consider the problems of the distillation of the essence and the maintenance of the identity of the work of art, which, in this case, is achieved through the intelligent manipulation of the timbral colorations of voices and the balance of the images. Hence, recordings of readings and the appearance of texts are subjected to various forms of signal processing; in particular, transposition, juxtaposition, superposition, convolution, fragmentation, granulation, filtering, and spatialization.
Claiming non-directionality as a response to the dominant orientations based on directionality, being sound and image generation continuous in real time without conclusive segmentations, as is the case of most of my installations, no one is expected to wait for any final conclusion, as happens in a traditional concert situation.
D’Eco a Siringa obtained a Premi Ciutat de Barcelona 2020 Grant
- Biography: José Manuel Berenguer is coordinator and professor of Psychoacoustics and Experimental Music of the Master in Sound Art of the University of Barcelona and director of Orquestra del Caos. Founder of Côclea with Clara Garí – where he directed the Musica 13 Festival for more than a decade – and also of Orquestra del Caos, collaborator of the Institut International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges, was the designer and the first person in charge from the Sound and Music Laboratory of the CIEJ of the Fundació la Caixa de Pensions, as well as Professor of Electroacoustic Music at the Conservatory of Bourges. Former President of the Electroacoustic Music Association of Spain, he is currently President of Honour of the International Conference of Electroacoustic Music of the CIM / UNESCO, President of Quantum Art Lab, member of the Académie Internationale de Musique Electroacoustique / Bourges and of the Board of Trustees of the Phonos Foundation.
La Capella – What is Possible and What is Not
What is Possible and What is Not
Opening June 9 at 6 pm
Consult the schedule at https://www.lacapella.barcelona/en
What Is Possible and What Is Not is a group exhibition that brings together artists associated with ISEA2022 Barcelona and those from the digital environment and research project categories of the Barcelona Producció call for proposals that defines La Capella’s programmes. The exhibition therefore interconnects several different types of content stemming from the centre’s two main strands. On the one hand, it brings together a number of significant artists within emerging artistic practices, and on the other hand, it encourages a generational exchange of high contextual intensity.
What Is Possible and What Is Not also involves challenging the possibilities offered by technological advances. Despite their capacity for enabling what could not have been imagined a few years ago, this same provision often clashes against their own limits. At the same time, science is able to explore these limits well and demonstrate that what cannot be done now will be possible in the near future.
El que és possible i el que no
Inauguració el 9 de juny a les 18:00h
Consulta l’horari a https://www.lacapella.barcelona/cat
El que és possible i el que no és una exposició col·lectiva que posa en relació artistes vinculats a ISEA2022 Barcelona i artistes procedents de les modalitats d’entorns digitals i investigació de la convocatòria de Barcelona Producció que defineix les programacions de La Capella. En aquest sentit, la mostra encreua uns continguts derivats dels dos eixos principals del centre. D’una banda, reuneix una sèrie d’artistes significatius dins les pràctiques artístiques emergents; de l’altra, afavoreix un intercanvi generacional d’una forta intensitat contextual.
El que és possible i el que no suposa, a més, una posada en crisi de les possibilitats que ens ofereixen els avenços tecnològics. Tot i la seva capacitat per fer possible allò que no ens podíem imaginar fa uns anys, aquesta mateixa disposició, tot sovint, topa amb els seus propis límits. A la vegada, la ciència és capaç d’explorar bé aquests límits i constatar que, en breu, allò que ara mateix no es pot fer sí que es podrà fer.
Artworks from ISEA2022 Barcelona’s call:
Artists from Barcelona Producció
- Imatges hostes. Parasitologia de la visió i altres simbiosis
Estampa - Auspicis
Estampa - Pwned
Marío Santamaría