"Building worlds" by Liam Young. Fundación Telefónica

Throughout the proposal, the Australian architect and filmmaker address the repercussions of the use of technology in our lives and in the cities that we inhabit, combining fiction and reality. The tour begins with "In the Robot Skies" (2019), an experimental short film made with autonomous drones that were programmed with individual behaviors and cinematic criteria of their own. It stars two teenagers who hack the surveillance mechanisms used to keep them apart and send each other love letters. The plot aims to encourage debate on the potential uses of drones as cultural objects and not only for military purposes.

For its part, "New City" (2015) is composed of a set of visions of cities of the not-too-distant future, projecting new cultural, political, economic, and environmental forces and trends. The animations have been made from photographs taken on expeditions and are accompanied by texts by science fiction writers. "Where the city can't see" (2019), a short fiction film shot entirely with laser scanners, proposes a tour of a near-future city through the eyes of the robots that control it.

The works "Planet City" (2021) and "The Great Endeavour" (2022), an unpublished piece, discuss climate change and pose an urgent analysis of the environmental questions we are already facing today. The exhibition closes with "The Emissary," a post-apocalyptic piece, also created for this exhibition. For this work, Young designed, together with NASA professionals, a fictitious spaceship made of non-obsolete materials, which would eternally transmit what we are today. It would be a testimony that one day we existed and also a sort of funeral.

Forgotten landscapes, alien terrains, and industrial ecologies make up the imaginary of Liam Young's work. The installations of this artist, although fictional, are based on a deep and detailed investigation in which design, the study of futures, and the creation of powerful audiovisual narratives converge. The exhibition leaves the viewer reflecting but also leaves a positive message: we must bet on hope against fear and anxiety and put ourselves into action, understanding the future more as a state.

Participating Artist:

The exhibition presents six multimedia artistic productions, made by young artists who practice, as a theoretical background, the language of investigative aesthetics. Ukrainian artist Ciprian Tokar's artistic research focuses on the interference between personal and collective memory of traumatic historical events such as the Maidan Revolution and Russia's brutal attack on Ukraine. His artistic practice is associated with the notion of "expanded painting", "2.0" or "networked" developed by the American art historian David Joselit. By this notion, painting is a visual construct that is based on images extracted from visual communication through mass media and social media.

From another perspective, the artistic works proposed by ALB question the image in its capacity as a communication code. In the current context, where the image proliferates in a deeply virtualized social environment, her artistic practice is a response to this environment, being categorized as antimimetic and non-aesthetic. The refusal to create defined visual representations, and implicitly, the refusal to describe or comment on a supposed reality is accompanied by the challenge of abstraction as a process of mental reduction and essentialization of representation.

The works proposed by Lucian Bran use the analogical image to show how information is interpreted by different types of individuals according to their belief systems. From literary interpretations of the Bible that say the earth is 6000 years old to geological truths such as, the force of gravity tends to flatten the earth's surface over time, etc.

Hamburg-based Russian artist Elizaveta Ostapenko's research focuses on the communicative character of the image. In her case, the production of the image is the result of a deconstructive process, which involves canceling the traditional semiotic functions used in representation. His artistic practice develops a narrative about the image using personal experiences, activities and everyday experiences, inspired by the immediate reality induced by the visual manipulations of mass culture. In contrast, Ana Maria Micu restricted her flow of images to a source that comes from the environment of her own home. The artist exclusively paints scenes from her own apartment, images taken during various artistic endeavors. The painting proposed by the artist represents an unlimited visual examination, a multifaceted presentation of the self.

Sara Muscalu's artistic practice is located at the intersection between painting and photography. It explores the extension and hybridization of the two media, as well as the specificity of these media in relation to their ability to objectively communicate information; in the present case, the information is about the process of erosion and disappearance of public spaces over time, taking as benchmarks the post-industrial condition of Romanian society and the theme of work.

"Unlimited Visuality" is a cultural project co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration. The project does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. These are entirely the responsibility of the funding recipient.

Nova Pantalla is the first exhibition dedicated to the art of videogames in Catalonia. Its aim is to reach both video game fans and people who do not know about them. For this reason, the exhibition has an interactive character, with immersive content and games so that everyone can participate.

“Nova Pantalla” wants to promote the video game as a cultural product of artistic interest, therefore, an immersive video created expressly for the occasion is projected in the space, a piece of work that introduces visitors into video games.

Front of the Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat Art Collection

Jimena Fuertes, who has excelled in contemporary geometric abstraction, arranges these figures without concrete forms in order to represent the flow of water. Underwater, nothing can be the same shape, everything is transformed by the qualities of the liquid state. In this sense, the installation allows the viewer to live the experience of transformation. The ductility of water undoubtedly gives free rein to one's imagination.

 

Ph: Florencia Downes

Ph: Pablo Jantus

Detail of "Liquid Dream"

"Liquid Dream" also generates an emotional impact. This proposal is designed for spectators to enter the room in pairs and experience a more intimate encounter. The play of lights and colors and the vibrating sound also help people to perceive the space, their role in it, and their relationship with others. It is an installation where time does not matter and everything is transformed.

This exhibition aims to form existential questions, but it is also about environmental and social awareness. Water is an essential element for human beings, it transmits peace, makes us happy, and also nourishes us. Jimena Fuertes invites us to live this immersive experience, this liquid dream to stop and experience a real now that is impossible not to enjoy, but also poetically, she warns us that water is a resource that we must protect and defend.

Adrian Grecu is a pioneer in combining traditional media with augmented and virtual reality. The artist started looking for the visual effects of joining real objects with those digitally modeled in 3D since the end of the 90s. His works have won awards and been presented at international exhibitions in London, Seoul, Koga, Sint Niklaas, Gliwicze, Kanagawa, Cheju, Venice.

"The exhibition brought together some of the most important landmarks of the artistic production of Adrian Grecu, one of the most relevant artists active in the sphere of new technologies in Romania. Adrian Grecu is a veteran of the use of digital media and their expressive and conceptual potential.

The RetroPerspectiva project is not only a recuperative exercise - although the retrospective dimension remains obvious, being so necessary in the case of a mature artist with a vast activity - but it also wants and succeeds in being a manifesto of our way of relating to the current world. It's a speech about the utopias and dystopias still present in the collective mind, it's a comment on the idea of power, both political power and its abuses, as well as cutting-edge artistic practices and tools, more precisely their power of visualization and conceptualization, suggested by the defiantly waved flag in the title of the exhibition and which proudly bears the Power symbol specific to electronic instruments," pointed out curator Horea Avram.

"And, like any manifesto, this exhibition has programmatic value: naturally including previous digital works, in two-dimensional format, graphic or pictorial, the artist fertilely speculates in the recent works the direct, moving encounter between the digital and the real facilitated by the use of Augmented Reality. RetroPerspective. A digital manifesto is an exhibition that constitutes itself as a real manifesto of the era in which we live and of our (always) extended experience of this world, one that stands more and more under the sign of the digital".

Adrian Grecu was born in Cluj-Napoca in 1969, he graduated from the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, but also from the Faculty of Physics of Babeș-Bolyai University. He had personal exhibitions in Romania, in Cluj and Bucharest and in the USA. He participated with works in various international graphics festivals in Poland, Japan, Korea, Belgium.

"El Gran Manto" by Ricardo Migliorisi

The history of Paraguay has always been crossed by weaving. Aó, a Guaraní word, refers to textiles in all their formats, from clothing to ornaments, including quilts and tapestries. "Paraguayan folk weavings tell the stories of the people who make them (mostly women) and use them in the domestic or work environment," said Lía Colombino, curator and director of the Museo del Barro's Museum of Indigenous Art.

Throughout the exhibition, the artists address central topics such as the role of women, work, readings of the conquest, popular art, and traditional knowledge through contemporary art. The works of Claudia Casarino, Mónica Millán, Arnaldo Cristaldo, Félix Cardozo and Joaquín Sánchez recover embroidery, lace and traditional fabrics to make women's labor emancipation visible.

"Sí, quería" by Joaquín Sánchez

The works of Marcos Benítez and Karina Yaluk use textiles as a weft to which plant or animal traces are attached. Meanwhile, in the center of the room, Ricardo Migliorisi's "El Gran Manto" (The great mantle) captures the viewers' attention due to its enormous size. It is a 12-meter-long patchwork made up of gobelins, which are carpets of French origin that reveal how tradition has been crossed by colonization. The pieces were intervened with texts from an inaccurate web translator, as a sort of textual and textile Babel.

The artists Osvaldo Salerno and Feliciano Centurión detach themselves from the locals also in terms of tradition, but to remember the domesticity of the sewing machines or the massively used blankets, so close to their histories. Salerno, brings up the language, that other clothing that dresses us; and Centurión, embark on small stories of affection.

Feliciano Centurión

The exhibition "Aó: Textile Episodes of the Visual Arts in Paraguay" is an invitation to delve into Paraguay's art scene, as well as its history and, therefore, the working material of its artists. A common axis throughout the tour is the conception of weaving as writing and the overflowing of stories as a critical activity necessary to think a territory.

The purpose of the project revolved around the need to preserve crafts and promote traditional culture through contemporary art, this project putting a local craft in the foreground.

"The charcoal makers from Lupeni (Farkaslaka) Harghita county have a tradition of over three centuries. Generations have taken care of this craft, by which they produce mangal - charcoal from burnt hardwood. Thick wooden branches are cut and built into huge cones, called bushes, then covered with sand and earth, after which a smoldering, flameless burn takes place in the absence of oxygen for nearly two weeks. As a result of this burning, the carbonization of the wood occurs.

Finally, the coal thus obtained is crushed, packed in paper bags and sold. The beneficiaries are all of us, when we light these coals on the grills, to fry various goodies. Recently, technology has been imposed in this field as well, with wood charcoal being obtained in special furnaces. There are only a few genuine charcoal burners left in the area who still practice this craft. Like other jobs, this risks being forgotten too. Within this camp, we set out to value of charcoal in the most noble way possible, namely to be used in drawing and other artistic techniques by contemporary artists. Thus, the work of art obtained with a few grams of coal can be worth as much as the equivalent of tens of kilograms of coal. Another approach to the theme was the representation of charring through other artistic techniques. So - with or without coal, but about coaling - it became the motto of the camp...", said Lucian Muntean, camp coordinator.

At the first edition of the project, a group of 6 artists were invited to take part in "a creative camp where they documented the activity of the coal miners, visited the cultural and historical sites in the area, then created a series of contemporary art works, using locally produced coal as a working material. During the creation period, as well as at the end of the camp, there were demonstration workshops attended by children from the community or those interested. The works of art were later exhibited in Lupeni, but also in itinerant exhibitions around the country, which are to be scheduled", Lucian Muntean also conveyed.

The project was attended by: Botár László (Miercurea Ciuc), Lucian Muntean (Bucharest), Justinian Scarlătescu (Bucharest), Marius Stanciu (Bucharest), Radu Șerban (Cluj-Napoca), Aurel Tar (Bucharest). Guest artist Florin Gherasim (Cluj-Napoca)

Organizers of the exhibition: Harghita County Council, Harghita County Cultural Center, Harghita County Council Gallery and Cultura Nostra Association.