[rohrpost] SOFT CONTROL: Art, Science and the Technological Unconscious, exhibition, conference, workshops, lectures, November 15 – December 20, 2012, Maribor

[Ingeborg Reichle]

Activities in a frame of the European Capital of Culture Maribor 2012,
Slovenia

Multimedia Centre KIBLA, Maribor and Koroška galerija likovnih
umetnosti (KGLU), Slovenj Gradec announce the international
contemporary art project – entitled “SOFT CONTROL: Art, Science and
the Technological Unconscious” – to be held from November 15 to
December 20, 2012.

SOFT CONTROL: Art, Science and the Technological Unconscious
exhibition, conference, workshops, lectures

Dates: November 15 – December 20, 2012
Venues for the project: KIBLA Multimedia Centre in Maribor, Koroška
galerija likovnih umetnosti in Slovenj Gradec (KGLU), Slovenia

Opening day at the Koroška galerija likovnih umetnosti, Slovenj
Gradec: November 14, 2012
Opening day at the KIBLA Multimedia Centre, Maribor: November 15, 2012
Participants: 30 artists from more than 11 countries

The international contemporary art exhibition SOFT CONTROL is being
held as part of the Maribor – European Capital of Culture 2012
programme. The project will be presented at two sites: at the KIBLA
Multimedia Centre (Maribor) and the Koroška galerija likovnih
umetnosti (Slovenj Gradec). SOFT CONTROL will be curated by DMITRY
BULATOV, artist, new media theoretician and curator of the National
Centre for Contemporary Arts (Kaliningrad branch, Russia). The
exhibition will feature the work of thirty artists from eleven
different countries.

The status of European Capital of Culture provides a powerful impulse
towards the realisation of new ideas and projects. This helps to draw
in both local experts and internationally renowned professionals to
participate in the cultural life of the city. Devoting special
attention to contemporary readings of culture and the exchange of
innovative ideas, the KIBLA Multimedia Centre (Maribor) and Koroška
galerija likovnih umetnosti (Slovenj Gradec) have initiated a
large-scale international project focused on the latest forms of
artistic creation that have emerged at the intersection of art,
science and technology. “The KIBLA Multimedia Centre is one of the
most important organizations involved with contemporary art in
Slovenia and Europe today”, remarked MMC KIBLA president and project
director Aleksandra Kostič. “For the past fifteen years we have built
up a great deal of experience in conducting various art projects and
festivals.” The current project seeks to analyse the impact of the
development of advanced technologies on the modern individual, and to
elaborate cultural strategies for re-establishing people’s sense of
engagement in the technological processes under way.

The capacity of an enterprise to both make a memorable impression on
the audience and become a significant cultural event is largely
determined by the cooperation of major curators, artists, philosophers
and art theoreticians. In order to impart a universal format of
artistic expression to the collective efforts, MMC KIBLA and Koroška
galerija likovnih umetnosti Slovenj gradec invited Dmitry Bulatov to
curate the exhibition. Aleksandra Kostič commented on the choice:
“Dmitry Bulatov is a well-known expert in the field of new media. As
curator of the National Centre of Contemporary Arts (Russia) he has
brought about more than twenty major international exhibitions and
publishing projects devoted to various aspects of the interactions
between art and high technology.”

“SOFT CONTROL: Art, Science and the Technological Unconscious” will
demonstrate various patterns of the use of new technologies in the
current artistic process, and also present works of art that subject
the role of technology and the media in contemporary civilisation to
critical analysis. “When choosing the theme of the exhibition”, notes
Bulatov, “we proceeded from the idea that science and technology are
not merely tools that we use to achieve designated goals. On the
contrary, technologies are raising new invisible boundaries all around
us, penetrating into and transforming all spheres of human activity”.
This raises the question of how we ought to understand the nature of
control, of the compulsion that forces each and every one of us to
participate in the formation of technological systems. In Bulatov’s
opinion, “the task of the exhibition can be summed up as follows: to
show how artists create new forms and new identities, not, however, as
the protagonists of a historically determined technological narrative,
but as the creators of that narrative”. Artists including Marina
Abramović (Serbia/USA) with Suzanne Dikker and Matthias Oostrik (The
Netherlands), Bill Vorn (Canada), Stelarc (Australia), James Auger and
Jimmy Loizeau (United Kingdom), Polona Tratnik (Slovenia), Floris
Kaayk (The Netherlands), Leo Peschta (Austria), Seiko Mikami (Japan),
David Bowen (USA), Tuur Van Balen (Belgium), Stefan Doepner and Lars
Vaupel (Slovenia / Germany), The Tissue Culture & Art Project: Oron
Catts and Ionat Zurr (Australia), Maja Smrekar (Slovenia), Kuda begut
sobaki (Russia), Andy Gracie (United Kingdom / Spain), Brandon
Ballengee (USA), Louis-Philippe Demers (Singapore), Ursula Damm
(Germany), Guy Ben-Ary and Kirsten Hudson (Australia),
Boredomresearch: Vicky Isley and Paul Smith (United Kingdom), Arthur
Elsenaar and Remko Scha (The Netherlands) and others were invited to
participate in the exhibition for this very reason. All in all, the
SOFT CONTROL exhibition is projected to show more than twenty
technological art installations, some of which are being promoted as
both international and European premieres.

Commenting on the project's format, Bulatov emphasises: “The
foundation of our exhibition lies in works of art that were created
using the latest 21st-century technologies: robotics, information
technologies, biomedicine and nanotechnology. Artworks like these are
the ideal way to convey a sense of time, which combines signs of life
(like a living organism) with those of a technically reproduced
artefact. This is of utmost importance when we are dealing with the
approach of a new post-biological age – a stage of our human existence
when the technological constituent of one or another organism will not
only become inseparable from the biological, but in the long run will
even overtake it”.

Along with the exhibition programme, the SOFT CONTROL project will
involve other noteworthy events, all distinguished by this synthesis
of artistic disciplines and scientific/technological research.
Throughout the month, MMC KIBLA and the Koroška galerija likovnih
umetnosti Slovenj Gradec will host educational lectures and
discussions, seminars and master-classes given by well-known experts
in the field of contemporary technological art. Andrei Smirnov,
director of the Theremin Center (Moscow State Conservatory),
specialist, practitioner and theorist in the sphere of DIY theremin
sensors – experimental sound in general – will run workshop with
inclusion of theoretical elements from the history of the sound
avant-garde. Maja Smrekar &  Dr. Špela Petrič (Slovenia) will lead an
intensive 2 day art workshop for those who interested in using
biological technologies and examining issues of biotechnology and
genomics. Educational program will also include video screenings from
major international media-art festivals and institutions such as: PRIX
Ars Electronica (Austria), VIDA: Art & Artificial Life International
Competition (Spain), MediaArtLab Centre for Art and Culture (Russia),
Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) (USA), IMPAKT (The
Netherlands), The Prometheus Center (Russia), and others.

The showpiece event of the educational programme will be an
international conference involving theoreticians and artists from
Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and Singapore, to be held 16-17
November 2012. Conference participants invited include recognised
experts in the field of contemporary art and new technologies such as
Roy Ascott (Plymouth University, UK), Erkki Huhtamo (University of
California Los Angeles, US), Andy Pickering (University of Exeter,
UK), Pier Luigi Capucci (NABA International Academy of Arts and
Design, Milan, IT). The conference will place special emphasis on the
presentation of new strategies in contemporary technological art and
training and education in the field, as well as practical
presentations. Famous artists and practitioners including Marina
Abramović (Serbia/USA), Stelarc (Australia), Polona Tratnik
(Slovenia), Seiko Mikami (Japan), Jurij Krpan (Slovenia), Oron Catts
and Ionat Zurr (Australia), L.-P. Demers (Singapore) will enjoy the
opportunity to express themselves in the papers, lectures and discussions.

Technological art today is a site for the testing of various artistic
innovations. However, it is clear that this research into the New
should not be seen merely as narrowly-specialised technical or
aesthetic experiments, but first and foremost as cultural utterance
and cultural activity. Only then can the results of the artists’
investigations have a significant influence on thought and social
life. This is the sort of goal set by the “SOFT CONTROL: Art, Science
and the Technological Unconscious” project – it aims to provide
visitors with an opportunity to learn to relate to technology not as
our slave or as a simple extension of ourselves, but as a mysterious
construct with which we enter into creative unions and conclude
cautious agreements.

The project will be realized with the support of The European Capital
of Culture Maribor 2012, The Slovenian Ministry of Culture, Slovenj
Gradec City Council, Maribor City Council

Organized and produced by Koroška galerija likovnih umetnosti Slovenj
Gradec and MMC KIBLA