With Morehshin Allahyari, Tony Cokes, Flaka Haliti, Ahmet Öğüt, Tamiko Thiel and /p, and Les Trucs.
On the occasion of the 175th jubilee of the first freely-elected German National Assembly in the Paulskirche, WAVA presents an augmented exhbition of site-specific virtual artworks expanding across the public space in the city of Frankfurt.
In the press:
Disco Isn’t Dead. It Has Gone to War / 032c
Is Augmented Reality the Future of Exhibiting Digitally Native Artworks? / Collecteurs
Digital Street Art in an Augmented Reality / Articulate
Somewhere Between Nature and Culture We Can Begin Again / Camera Austria
Virtuelle Kunst an der Paulskirche / Frankfurter Rundschau
Per App: Ausstellung zeigt virtuelle Whistleblower in Frankfurt / Journal Frankfurt
SYMPOSIUM
"ARtificial Realities"
12.05.23
13:00-17:30
Crespo Studio
Berliner Straße 27
As part of the opening day program, the symposium ARtificial Realities was held in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf –– a collaboration between WAVA and the NRW-Forum, where the second edition of the AR Biennale will open on May 13th under the title HYBRID NATURE (see www.nrw-forum.de for more information)
PROGRAM
13:00-13:55
Introduction
Ben Livne Weitzman (WAVA)
14:05-15:25
Not so ARtificial Realities
Adela Demetja (Tirana Art Lab)
Gloria Aino Grzywatz (peer to space)
Ofili Ebube Sett (Memory Cubes)
Presentations and discussion
15:40-16:30
Trailblazing Augmentations
Tamiko Thiel and Livia Nolasco-Rozsas (ZKM)
in conversation
16:40-17:30
Facing Barricades
Tony Cokes and Flaka Haliti
in conversation with Ben Livne Weitzman (WAVA)
20:00
Monuments of the Disclosed
An artist talk with Ahmet Öğüt
At the site of the Monument for Aaron Schwartz.
12.05.23
OPENING RECEPTION
DEMO-
Bunte Stoffe—Eine Hymne / Les Trucs LIVE at the Paulskirche
Today, every physical space is simultaneously an augmented space. Virtual layering of data made accessible constantly through our mobile devices expands new possibilities.
With sonic interventions, participative installations and critical virtual monuments, DEMO– takes over and virtually augments specific locations in the public space, opening a new perspective on how we can conceive and activate space as such and spaces of assembly in particular.
The exhibition is powered by WAVA – a platform for site-specific virtual art turning the world into an ever-changing exhibition space. With WAVA one can place, share and experience virtual works of art in specific spaces and contexts, envisioning a new hybrid space created at the intersections of art, technology, environment and community building.
All artworks are accessible on location via the WAVA app, available for Android and iOS.
ARTISTS
Morehshin Allahyari
Morehshin Allahyari (Persian: موره شین اللهیاری), is a NY based Iranian-Kurdish artist using 3D simulation, video, sculpture, and digital fabrication as tools to re-figure myth and history. Through archival practices and storytelling, her work weaves together complex counternarratives in opposition to the lasting influence of Western technological colonialism in the context of SWANA (Southwest Asia and North Africa). Morehshin has been part of numerous exhibitions, festivals, and workshops around the world including Venice Biennale di Archittectura, New Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Pompidou Center, Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal, Tate Modern, Queens Museum, Pori Museum, Powerhouse Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, and Museum für Angewandte Kunst. She has been an artist in residence at BANFF Centre, Carnegie Mellon University’s STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, Autodesk Pier9 Workshop in San Francisco, the Vilém Flusser Residency Program for Artistic Research in association with Transmediale, Berlin, Eyebeam’s one year Research Residency, Pioneer Works, and Harvest Works. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, Huffington Post, Wired, National Public Radio, Parkett Art Magazine, Frieze, Rhizome, Hyperallergic, and Al Jazeera, among others
Tony Cokes
Tony Cokes lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island, where he serves as a Professor in the Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. For over 30 years, he has explored the impact of political ideologies in media and pop culture on society, using a unique language for video essays that rejects representative imagery. Through found text fragments and pop music, his audiovisual works challenge conventional forms of perception and trace historical continuities, making reading discourses on structural racism, capitalism, warfare, and gentrification a bodily and public experience. In 2022, he was the subject of a major survey jointly organized by the Haus der Kunst and Kunstverein in Munich. Other recent solo exhibitions include De Balie, Amsterdam (2022); Greene Naftali, New York (2022, 2018); Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, Rochester (2021); MACRO Contemporary Art Museum, Rome (2021); CIRCA, London (2021); Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona (2020); ARGOS centre for audiovisual arts, Brussels (2020); Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2020); BAK – basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, Netherlands (2020); Luma Westbau, Zurich (2019); Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, London (2019); The Shed, New York (2019); Kunsthall Bergen, Norway (2018); and REDCAT, Los Angeles (2012).
Flaka Haliti
Flaka Haliti (born 1982 in Prishtina, Kosovo, lives in Munich) represented her home country Kosovo at the Venice Biennale in 2015. She was a scholarship holder of the Villa Romana in Florence in 2017 and is the recipient of the Ars Viva Prize. She completed her studies at the College of Fine Arts, Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main and presented her artistic work in individual exhibitions at the mumok - Museum Moderne Kunst in Vienna, S.A.L.T.S. Kunstverein Birsfelden, Kunsthalle Lingen and the Kunsthaus Hamburg and in group exhibitions at Museum Ludwig Cologne, Kunsthalle Vienna and Lenbachhaus Munich, amongst others. Also in 2018 Haliti participated in Public Art Munich and the Busan Biennale. In 2019 she was a participant in the Fellbach Triennial for sculpture, where she received the Ludwig Gies Prize from the Letter Stiftung. She was nominated for the Preis der Nationalgalerie in 2019 and was exhibited at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin. In 2022, she participated at the Manifesta in Prishtina.
Ahmet Öğüt
Ahmet Öğüt born in 1981 in Diyarbakır, is a sociocultural initiator, artist, and lecturer. Working across a variety of media, including photography, video, and installation, Öğüt often uses humor and small gestures to offer his commentary on rather serious or pressing social and political issues. Öğüt is regularly collaborating with people from outside of the art world to create shifts in the perception of common. He has exhibited widely, more recently with solo presentations at Kunstverein Dresden, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Chisenhale Gallery, and Van Abbemuseum. He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including the 17th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, (2022); FRONT International 2022, Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, Ohio (2022); Asia Society Triennial: We Do Not Dream Alone (2021); In the Presence of Absence, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2020); Zero Gravity at Nam SeMA, Seoul Museum of Art (2019); Echigo Tsumari Art Triennale (2018); the British Art Show 8 (2015-2017); 11th Gwangju Biennale (2016); the 13th Biennale de Lyon (2015); 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014); Performa 13, the Fifth Biennial of Visual Art Performance, New York (2013); the 7th Liverpool Biennial (2012); the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011); the New Museum Triennial, New York (2009); and the 5th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art (2008). Öğüt has been a guest professor, mentor, tutor, advisor, research teacher at several schools. Among the schools are Institut für Kunst im Kontext at Universität der Künste Berlin; Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht; Sandberg Institute Amsterdam; Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki; TransArts - Transdisziplinäre Kunst, Institut für Bildende und Mediale Kunst Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien; and DAI (Dutch Art Institute) Arnhem. Öğüt was awarded the Visible Award for the Silent University (2013); the special prize of the Future Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Art Centre, Ukraine (2012); the De Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst Prijs 2011, Netherlands; and the Kunstpreis Europas Zukunft, Museum of Contemporary Art, Germany (2010). He co-represented Turkey at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009).
Tamiko Thiel & /p
Tamiko Thiel is a visual artist who explores the interplay of place, space, the body, and cultural identity through a variety of media, including 2D and 3D digital prints, videos, installations, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence art. Thiel received a B.S. in Product Design Engineering from Stanford University and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she worked as a lead product designer on Danny Hillis’ AI supercomputers, the Connection Machines CM-1 and CM-2. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the San Jose Museum of Art. She was awarded the 2018 iX Immersive Experiences Visionary Pioneer Award for her life work by the Society for Art and Technology Montreal. In 2007, she received a major grant from the Hauptstadtkulturfonds to create an interactive 3D installation on the Berlin Wall. In 2012, she was commissioned by the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT) in Liverpool to develop an augmented reality system using bio-sensing, together with her collective MAnifest.AR. In 2018 Thiel was commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art to create the AR installation "Unexpected Growth", and she supported numerous AR projects, including the "Mi Querido Barrio" tour in 2012 and the Hidden Histories San Jose Japantown AR project in 2019.
Les Trucs
Les Trucs is a collaboration between Charlotte Simon and Toben Piel, who have been working together since 2008. Their works, whether it's sound concepts for urban spaces, compositions for a moving paper choir, or a basement bar, are always related to the surrounding spaces and situations. Les Trucs perform in DIY structures as well as in contexts of performing and visual arts. They have collaborated with choreographers and directors such as Meg Stuart, Philippe Quesne, contact Gonzo, Schorsch Kamerun, and Eisa Jocson, and have played concerts across Europe, Russia, Israel, and Japan. Together with Benjamin Bascom, they run MMODEMM, a cassette label for experimental electronic dance music. In 2020, they founded Wheel of Fortune, another label that releases conceptual music in connection with 3D-printed objects.
SPEAKERS
Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás
Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás is a curator and art historian. She has curated thematic exhibitions raising questions such as the genealogy and social impact of planetary computation or electronic surveillance and democracy at institutions of contemporary and media art worldwide since 2006, including at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Chronus Art Center (Shanghai), Nam June Paik Art Center (Seoul), Tallinna Kunstihoone, Ludwig Museum Budapest.
As of 2019 she has started a research in curatorial studies on the “virtual condition” and is acting head of the international collaboration project entitled Beyond Matter at ZKM | Karlsruhe, which she initiated and in which institutions such as Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Aalto University, and others participate.
Adela Demetja
Adela Demetja is a curator born in Tirana, Albania living in Tiran and Frankfurt am Main. She holds a master's degree in "Curatorial and Critical Studies" of Städelschule and Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main. She is the director of Tirana Art Lab – Center for Contemporary Art, which she established in 2010. As an independent curator, she has curated numerous international exhibitions and collaborated among others with institutions like the National Gallery of Arts Tirana, the National Art Gallery of Kosovo, Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art USA, Project Biennale D-0 Ark Underground Konjic, Action Field Kodra Thessaloniki, Lothringer 13 Kunsthalle Munich, Villa Romana Florence, Haus am Lützowplatz Berlin. She curated the Albanian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale represented by Lumturi Blloshmi.
Gloria Aino Grzywatz
Gloria Aino Grzywatz is a curator and art mediator based between Berlin and Stuttgart. She holds an MA in philosophy, science of art and cultural education from the TechnicalUniversity of Berlin and was a scholarship holder at the University Sorbonne in Paris. Her work focuses on identity, cultural policy, activism and contemporary architecture.
As a freelance art mediator, she has been working intensively on the topics of diversity, accessibility and participation in the field of art since 2015. She is the curator of PARS PRO TOTO, peer to space’s online screening series. In addition to her work at peer to space, she was working for the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, the 11th and 12th Berlin Biennale and Radiance VR, which is a research platform and database for VR art. Gloria Aino Grzywatz is the co-curator of Glowing Globe and Iwaya Community Art Biennale 2023. Last year she was mainly working for documenta fifteen and is currently working as a curator at Akademie Schloss Solitude.
Ebube Sett, Ofili
Ebube Sett, Ofili is a technical artist: digital game designer focused on intersectional relationships surrounding arts, programming languages, human behavior modification and mental well-being.
Sett has a bachelor of arts degree in educational foundations from the University of Lagos, where he combined studies in guidance and counselling/educational psychology in the faculty of education and history and strategic studies in the faculty of arts. Sett has an interdisciplinary practice as a designer, programmer, artist, entrepreneur, researcher and guidance counsellor. He is the founder of Habeet Games, a startup that uses gamification to educate, modify behavior and promote mental well-being.
Sett’s project, Memory Cubes, funded by the City of Stuttgart, is an application that gamifies historical education. It is currently part of the
exhibition at Brycke, the City of Stuttgart’s Department of Economic Development initiative to create a space and community that connects visions, innovative products and people.
Sett is currently a cooperative fellow in Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, supported by Afrokids ev, an NGO involved in education and peace work.
Thomas Friemel
In addition to his work as a cultural manager and curator, Thomas Friemel has worked as a director with various independent theater groups. Guest performances followed in Vienna (BRUT), Berlin (sophiensæle, Akademie der Künste) and Dresden (Festspielhaus Helerau), among others. From 1998 to 2003 he worked at various city and state theaters in Germany as assistant director and director. From 2003 to 2005 he was a permanent director at the Stadttheater Aachen, where he was also artistic director of the NRW Theatertreffen 2003. For the Hessische Theatertage 2007 and 2009 he took over the organizational and curatorial direction. From 2009 to 2013 he was personal assistant to the ballet director at the Staatstheater Mainz. For The Forsythe Company of the American choreographer William Forsythe, he worked from 2013 to 2014 and was responsible for communication and public relations within the Motion Bank. Since 2014 he has been managing director and artistic director of the Freitagsküche Frankfurt, which since then has regularly collaborated with great theater festivals and theatres in Germany. Among others with the Ruhrtriennale, Kunstfestspiele Hannover, Schauspiel Frankfurt, Sophiensælen Berlin, Goethe Institut and Mannheimer Sommer. In collaboration with Maiken Laackmann, Achim Lengerer and Maiken Laackmann he founded the augmented reality platform Augmented Bahnhofsviertel in 2021.
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