CYBERFEST 2012 ended with a party at Anna Frants Gallery. Thanks everyone, who supported us! Looking forward for next year, friends!

See photo report at СОБАКА.RU: http://www.sobaka.ru/photo/photo/14086#gallery

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Come to see the terrific Hybrid Performance today at 20:00 at Creative space TKACHI (Obvodny canal, 60). The performance was created as a part of the annual Moscow Lexus Hybrid Art festival and was first shown at the exhibition opening, which focus was on the idea of synergy. Synergy (whole, transcending the sum of its parts) in the arts is formed by the collision of artistic discourse with the latest technological tools. Hybrid Performance is the result of such merge. Festival's curator Katya Bochavar invited Roman Ermakov and Ivan Onoprienko to create an original work of art with optical illusions in the form of musical performance. Combining the works of contemporary and classical chamber music, Dmitry Vlasic created a unique sound compilation with the exhibition manifest narrated by Lilia Gysina. Young circus artists also take part in this performance, filling the optical space with gymnastic sketches.

Hybrid Performance, photography by Maria Yastrebova

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Fernando Velázquez — a multidisciplinary artist and a doctoral candidate in Communication and Semiotics at PUC-SP, whose works include videos, interactive installations and objects, and audiovisual performances, — will present Accident — an audiovisual performance in seven movements — on Monday, 26 November. Accident is the result of his studies of cultural relations between Brazil and Uruguay.

Accident will take lace at 19:00 at Creative space TKACHI (Obvodny Canal, 60).

Просмотреть увеличенную карту

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Erandy Vergara's presentation «Techno-poetics: Art And Technology In Latin Amercia», a part of CYBERFEST Educational program, discusses, how interactive installations by Latin American artists reflect on social dynamics mediated by new technologies. It specifically focuses on five contemporary artists: Rejane Cantoni & Leo Crescenti, Daniela Kutschat, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Mariela Yeregui, who investigate the possibilities and limits of interactive environments by moving beyond the technologies and the effects produced through interactions between humans and machines.

The presentation will take place on November, 24 at The Youth Educational Center of The State Hermitage (Palace Square, 6-8), free entry.

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Recently we have written about AUJIK project from our video program. Now we want to share with you an interview with its creator Stefan Larsson, a Swedish artist currently living in Japan, who finds his inspiration in technological animality.

Stills form «A Forest Within A Forest»

What the machines and technologies, presented in your video, are intended for? Are they equal participants of human society or they are supposed to be a part of nature?
As for intention and purpose, they don’t serve any. One of the main ideas with the AUJIK artefacts is that they don’t have any purpose. They are a kind of entity which are a crossbreed of nature and technology. Everything we consider technology – from the knife to carbon nano tubes -originates from nature and are constructed for a certain purpose to serve our needs. All forms of technology also evolve and becoming more efficient. The AUJIK artefacts never evolve, they always been in the same state since the Cambrian Explosion. In this video «A Forest Within A Forest» the artefacts are integrated in a bamboo forest. In most of the other videos they are stand alone entities.

Could these machines be dangerous for us in the real world? 
Their attributes is characterized by an idle and resigned behaviour. 
Each artefacts consists of an consciousness and sub consciousness similar to Artificial Intelligence, but with a much more vast and multifaceted capacity. 
Even though they properly have a very wide emotional register they are unable to express them self in any forms.
Considering the importance and demands people have on technology these artefacts might be dangerous to some extent since they are rather redundant and may be looked upon as self indulgent.

«The Ishiyama Excursion»

What inspired you to create the project "A Forest Within A Forest"? What ideas do you want to share with us through the project?
Initially it was because I’m very intrigued by bamboo forests. It’s something quite uncanny being surrounded by Bamboo, especially since they are actually a sort of grass and has this perfect almost artificial shape. 
The Japanese bamboo forest is very thick and even at the middle of the day there’s only a few sun rays penetrating the leaves which makes it a lot colder than outside, something I reckon also contributes to a certain atmosphere.
 When I moved to Japan five years ago I immediately started to film in this environment. First it was just static scenes and then I got in to motion tracking. I made several testes with these regular aujik artefacts but then decided to integrate that kind of robotic nature in to the bamboos. Also I started to work on a more comprehensive concept with aujik constructing it to a Shinto or Yamabushi like cult with members of AUJIK interacting with the artefact in various situations and forms. 
In «A Forest Within A Forest» one of the members projects her ideas and thoughts about what AUJIK calls refined and primitive nature.

What have you been working on recently?
For the last year and a half I’ve been working on a progressive (in terms of duration) short film called «Cathexis» which is a collaboration with a Scottish electronic musician called Christ. It is currently 25 minutes and the aim is to make it at least 45 minutes. It is built in chapters with various themes that all have the AUJIK artefacts artificial limbic system (a more complex form of AI) as a core. 
It is basically about how the group members intend to interact with the artefacts consciousness/sub-consciousness and the results and consequences of that pursuit.
 There’s so many fascinating aspects of AI that will reveal many new areas of the human mind. It’s like reverse reverse engineering in a way.
 In «Cathexis» is try to manifest some of this vision and ideas in a rather anomalous fashion. 
Most of the scenes are filmed using green screen which is pretty harsh work since I don’t have access to a green screen studio and have to rebuild it for each shoot. I decided to take a break from it and instead learn more about computer graphics technique.
 So at the moment I’m working on a 5-7 minutes video which is also an excuse to develop on 3D software and mainly particle systems.
The theme of the video is primitive computation which is illustrated by a stone and the intelligence potential it poses by its billions of atoms.
The video will have a macro kind of endoscope perspective with the camera floating through a landscape of objects similar to neurons, foliage, ikebana, nebulas, organs and robotics.

«Cathexis»

Your works are hard to imagine without the aid from technology, so how are media arts received in your country?
In Sweden where I’m from there’s a rather large scene for video art but not so much for media art as far as I know. There’s a place called Mejan Labs in Stockholm but I’m not quite sure if they are around anymore. When I’m in Sweden I usually go to Helsinki and Kiasma which regularly has interesting media art exhibitions.
In Japan it seems more common and popular. The annual Japan Media Arts Festival shows new and exciting media arts. Also MoT and Mori museums in Tokyo are keen to show art in that field. Here in the Kansai area (Kyoto, Osaka & Kobe), where I live, they occasionally show some at National museum of Art Osaka and at Kyoto Art Center. There’s properly plenty of more art spaces also that I’m not aware of.
I think media art will emerge explosively in the forthcoming years since the technique became more accessible and cheep, which is important for the artists seeking for new ways to express their ideas.

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Festival's video program features the project by Swedish artist Stefan Larsson «A Forest Within A Forest». In 2001 he created a virtual group AUJIK. Larsson is inspired by Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinges' ideas of technological singularity: the artist interested in interactions between artificial intelligence and emotion, psychology, nature and consciousness. AUJIK is such a group of new generation. The artist also shares Shinto idea, that everything in the world has a soul, even artificial and material objects. Along with other forms of animism, the group gives nature a spiritual essence. Modeling and creating artifacts, group members confident, they can achieve harmony before the predestined.

«9 States of Ambivalence» by AUJIK

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Counting days until the festival's opening? In Alicia Eggert's and Mike Fleming's kinetic installation, featured in our exhibition program, all 36 clock hands align to spell the word “ETERNITY” once every 12 hours.

Documentation by Mike Fleming

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Our team has yet a big surprise for you: last but not least addition to our performances program is terrific Hybrid Performance, produced by Katya Bochavar. The performance was created as a part of the annual Moscow Lexus Hybrid Art festival and was first shown at the exhibition opening, which focus was on the idea of synergy. Synergy (whole, transcending the sum of its parts) in the arts is formed by the collision of artistic discourse with the latest technological tools. Hybrid Performance is the result of such merge. Festival's curator Katya Bochavar invited Roman Ermakov and Ivan Onoprienko to create an original work of art with optical illusions in the form of musical performance. Combining the works of contemporary and classical chamber music, Dmitry Vlasic created a unique sound compilation with the exhibition manifest narrated by Lilia Gysina. Young circus artists also take part in this performance, filling the optical space with gymnastic sketches.

Hybrid Performance, photography by Maria Yastrebova

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