DIGITAL FUTURES Panel Talk

July 7th, 2022

The Digital Futures panelists will discuss and highlight the issues related to the intersection of digital and performance art.

Speakers:

Dr. Christiane Paul, New York, Adjunct Curator of Digital Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art | Professor in the School of Media Studies at The New School

Dr. Julie Nagam, Winnipeg, Director Nuit Blanche Toronto | Glam Collective

Tina Sauerlaender, Berlin, Artistic Director VR ART PRIZE | Co-Founder peer to space | Founder SALOON Berlin

Peggy Schoenegge, Berlin Senior Curator | peer to space

Dr. Francesca Albrezzi, L.A, University of California Los Angeles

Rah Eleh, Toronto, Moderator and Artist

We would like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts for their support. In addition, we would like to thank our partners at the European Cultural Centre Performance, European Cultural Centre Italy and the Aabijijiwan New Media Lab.

July 7, 2022 from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM CEST

https://zoom.us/j/96776275337?pwd=MHpIa2JOQ1ZLdVg3K3JSN21tK2k0dz09

Passcode: 573857

Peggy Schoenegge participates at Female Filmmakers Festival Berlin (FFFB)

IRL at The Factory and online

Fri, October 8, 2021, 6 - 7 pm

The Female Filmmakers Festival Berlin (FFFB) was created to support up and coming female talents from different ethnic backgrounds and nationalities, who have a unique story to tell. The annual five-day film event features screenings of international short & feature films of all genres as well as a hand-picked selection of music videos, panels, networking sessions and more. Peggy Schoenegge is part of the AR/VR panel: The Future of Filmmaking & Mixed Media together with Gerda Leopold (Amilux Filmporduktion), Kathrin Brunner (Myndstorm Productions Berlin) and Maria Courtial (Faber Courtial). The panel is moderated by Jewell Sparks (Female Filmmakers Festival Berlin / BITHOUSE GROUP) 

Full program and more information

KSB's Digital Lab #2 with LaTurbo Avedon, Peggy Schoenegge and Tina Sauerlaender

June, 15, 2021, 3 pm CEST

As a part of the Digital Lab #2, peer to space’s curators Peggy Schoenegge and Tina Sauerlaender will participate together with artist LaTurbo Avedon in a panel on AI and co-creation.

Full program here

SPACELAB – Into the Unknown

Borghildur Indrida, SPACELAB - Into the Unknown, 2021

Artist: Borghildur Indrida

Curators: Gloria Aino Grzywatz and Peggy Schoenegge

Opening: June 4, 2021, 7-10 pm CEST

Artist Talk (InstaLive): June 10, 2021, 7 pm

Finissage: June 12, 2021, 7 pm

June 4 – 12, 2021 at Hošek Contemporary

The exhibition SPACELAB – Into the Unknown represents the starting point of the artistic project Artist on the Moon. Reflecting our role as humans within the solar system, Borghildur Indrida plans to be the first artist to fly to the moon, realizing an artistic performance in space.

The moon has always been an object of international interest. Since the 1950s, various countries have raced to land missiles and crews in order to be the first to gather information about the distant luminary. Major nations such as the United States, the former Soviet Union or China succeeded and explored small areas of the moon. As a symbol of conquest, they raised flags and removed moon rocks, asserting territorial claims.

These claims of power illustrate imperialist structures, which Borghildur Indrida explores and questions. Flying to the moon herself, the artist rejects nationalized interplanetary relations reminiscent of a colonial past. As an act of national disempowerment, she looks for a way of restitution by bringing back the moon stones to where they belong. In this process, patriarchal patterns within space exploration also become visible, which she deconstructs in equal measure. Borghildur Indrida occupies the supposedly male domain as a female artist and reinterprets it as an artistic space, breaking up structures of power.

SPACELAB - Into the Unknown creates a laboratory situation, which allows a comprehensive scientific consideration of Borghildur Indrida’s project. In a site-specific installation at the ship hold of Hošek Contemporary, visitors are immersed into the artistic discourse. The artist confronts us with fundamental questions of systems of power and ownership interests. What claims are being made in relation to unmanned territories? What hierarchies and systems emerge? How can women assert themselves within patriarchal structures? In the artist's peaceful gesture of restitution, the complexity and insanity of nationalized power relations clarify and remind us of our position in the solar system. With the gaze toward and the journey to the moon, the focus of our being is directed to the essential – an equalized, respectful and participatory society without exploitation.

More Information

PORTRAIT OF A FUTURE

Peer to space’s curator Peggy Schoenegge curates the solo show PORTRAIT OF A FUTURE. of the artist Charlie Stein. The exhibition takes place at PRISKA PASQUER’s virtual gallery space as a part of the ONE TO ONE exhibition series from March 10 to April 6, 2021, followed by a solo exhibition at the gallery’s premises in Cologne, Germany later this year.

The exhibition title PORTRAIT OF A FUTURE is derived from Charlie Stein’s series Portrait Of A Future Self (2019-2021). The female robots free themselves from the constraints of their intended purposes and turn both gender clichés and the relationships between humans and machines on their heads. In light of the increasing significance of robot technologies in our daily lives, questions emerge about their social functions. Robots are produced by humans and therefore shaped by our norms and values. Charlie Stein's works open up the opportunity for reflection. In the future, will we continue to reproduce stereotypical role models in the machines we are creating? Or do we have a desire to change and develop a more open, diverse and fair existence to shape our future?

>>> Enter the exhibition here <<<

Charlie Stein, Autumn Magnet, Painting, 2020

peer to space’s curator Peggy Schoenegge at Golem-Labor Conference

peer to space’s curator Peggy Schoenegge will hold a keynote on Performing Arts in XR at Golem-Labor Conference.  

In the online conference, artists and XR experts will share their experiences, artistic projects and open dialogue on the intersection of art and immersive technologies. They will address questions on the intersection of the (performing) arts and (XR) technologies. How does the interaction of performing arts and technology impact the audience? How can the body and its physicality be experienced in VR? What are the limitations when working with Motion Capture technologies or Volumetric recording? And can the technology be more than just a tool?

The online conference is organized by gamelab.berlin and Goethe-Institut Prag. 

Further information 

peer to space’s curator Peggy Schoenegge at WISE 2020

peer to space’s curator and project manager Peggy Schoenegge moderated a panel with Patricia Detmering (Artist), Giorgio Vitale (Director Synthesis Gallery) and Li Zhenhua (Curator, Artists and Producer) on VR Art in China and the West for WISE 2020.

The talk will be streamed on August 29, 2020, 2:55 to 3:40 pm, CET Berlin.

WISE is a Future Think Tank. It is China’s most important global summit connecting thought leaders of the creative industries, science and the tech community on both sides of the Great Firewall to discuss essential questions about how we want and should live in the future.

 Further Information

VR art exhibition on Speculative Species at Espronceda, Barcelona

SPECULATIVE SPECIES - VR Art in the Age of the Anthropocene

Artists: Bianca Kennedy & The Swan Collective (DE), Juan Le Parc (ARG/FR), Jakob Kudsk Steensen (DK/US), Lara Torrance (UK/US)

Curators: Tina Sauerlaender & Peggy Schoenegge (DE) and Erandy Vergara (MX/CAN)

At: Espronceda, Center for Art & Culture, Carrer D'Espronceda 326 Nave 4,5 & 10
08027 Barcelona, Spain

Opening & Artist Talk & Panel Discussion: June 20, 2019, 7 pm

Duration: June 20 to 29, 2019

In the course of industrialisation, urbanisation and technolisation, human’s impact on the environment is increasing. The use and destruction of nature and its resources impairs the ecosystem, causing damage such as the hole in the ozone layer, climate change, the endangerment and extinction of various species. New procedures make it even possible to change DNA, which equally affects the whole system. All these human interventions inevitably affect global ecology and its creatures. Mankind has never been perceived as such an influencing factor for the environment. Today’s scientists and thinkers propose a new epoch, the Anthropocene, that describes and deals with the man-made changes, speaking from a geology of humankind.

Art as a mirror of current affairs also deals with these issues and uses new technologies such as VR. Using the possibilities of the virtual space as a room for experiments, artists reflect and speculate on characteristics and future developments of this new era of human interference with the environment and its creatures. They ask about the development of flora and fauna and how living conditions of different terrestrial species change. What kind of interrelation between humans and their environment will occur? The artists engage with the interconnections between humans and their fellow living creatures today and in speculative futuristic settings. This discussion/debate/speculative approach is transferred into the virtual space, in which the visitor immerses into.

Bianca Kennedy and The Swan Collective propose insects as alternative nutrition causing future genetic modifications. Juan Le Parc reveals an ancient temple built with meat products as a theatrical animal tragedy to discuss the duality of mass consumption and religious symbolism. With RE-ANIMATED Jakob Kudsk Steensen resurrects an extinct bird from recordings of its mating call in a world inhabited by algorithmically grown digital plants. Lara Torrance draws attention to endangered species in New England by placing their glassy versions into the virtual space.

Invited by the Goethe-Institut and Studio XX in Montréal, Erandy Vergara and Tina Sauerlaender developed the concept of their exhibition series Critical Approaches in Virtual Reality Art where this exhibition is part of. This series combines the passion and expertise of two curators: Erandy Vergara's engagement with postcolonial and feminist perspectives on media art and theory (Mexico/Montreal) and Tina Sauerlaender's curatorial engagement with digital technologies and Virtual Reality (Berlin). Together with peer to space’s curator Peggy Schoenegge, they curate the exhibition SPECULATIVE SPECIES.

Image: Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Re-Animated, 2018, screenshot of VR experience © the artist

Artist Talk with THIS IS FAKE moderated by peer to space's curator Peggy Schoenegge

As part of the group exhibition UNSTABLE SETTINGS, peer to space’s curator Peggy Schoenegge will moderate an artist talk with the artist collective THIS IS FAKE. In addition to their new works, the focus will be on virtual reality as an artistic medium and social dynamics in the digital age.

Date: Friday May 5, 2019 at 4 - 6 pm

Venue: UNTERGESCHOSS14 of Halle14 at the Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei, Spinnereistraße 7, 04179 Leipzig

More information

SPECULATIVE CULTURES - A Virtual Reality Exhibition

Matias Brunacci, Virtualshamanism, VR experience, 2018

Artists:  Morehshin Allahyari (IRN/US), Scott Benesiinaabandan (CAN), Matias Brunacci (ARG/DE), Yu Hong (CHN), Francois Knoetze (ZAF), Erin Ko (US) & Jamie Martinez (COL/US)
Curators: Tina Sauerlaender & Peggy Schoenegge (DE), and Erandy Vergara (MX/CA)
At: Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, Parsons School of Design at The New School , 2 West 13th St, Ground Floor, New York, USA
Opening: February 7, 2019, 6- 8 pm
Artists' Tour: February 8, 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Duration: February 7, 2019 - April 14, 2019.

Cultures have never existed in a set state. They are all in constant flux brought about by social, economic, and technological developments. The global flow of people forges change, adaptation of norms and the creation of new forms for human societies, religions, rituals, or spoken languages. These processes of change lead to the adoption of new tools or practices and therefore can be considered as engine for progress, growth, and innovation. The new tools of the digital age offer new possibilities for cultures to exist, evolve, and consolidate. Virtual Reality allows artists to speculate about new manifestations of cultural expressions within the conditions of the digital realm. Independent of physical surroundings, new spaces spring into existence. Through their works, the artists shape their hopes and desires into virtual environments representing imagined cultures. Their speculative virtual worlds create different perspectives on established narratives and traditions, as well as images and symbols. The artists’ projects thereby open possibilities for leaving accustomed views and familiar structures behind and exploring different notions of one’s own personal surroundings and conditions of human existence.

This show is part of the exhibition series Critical Approaches in Virtual Reality Art, which was developed by Erandy Vergara and Tina Sauerlaender at the invitation of the Goethe-Institut and Studio XX in Montréal. This series brings together Erandy Vergara's engagement with postcolonial and feminist perspectives on media art and theory and Tina Sauerlaender's curatorial engagement with digital technologies and Virtual Reality.  

Presented in partnership with the Consulate General of Canada in New York.

Inside Out > Solo Show Of Tatjana Schülke

peer to space’s curator Peggy Schoenegge curates Tatjana Schülke’s solo exhibition at Kunsthaus Dahlem. The exhibition Inside Out shows 15 recent works, which illustrate the artist's experimentation with different materials. In addition to the relationship between material, form and surface, the tension between internal and external effects is elementary.

The exhibition takes place from January 18th to April 8th 2019.

Further information

THIS COULD BE YOU – Disembodiment in Virtual Reality Art

THIS COULD BE YOU – Disembodiment in Virtual Reality Art

With: Claire Hentschker (US), Jessy Jetpacks (ARE/ UK), Martina Menegon (IT/AUT), Zeesy Powers (US)

Curated by: Peggy Schoenegge (peer to space)

At: Overkill Festival, The Netherlands

From: November 23rd to 25th, 2018

Today we communicate via several digital applications, and present our identity on the Internet. Social VR enables us to meet our friends’ avatars in a virtual space independently from our body’s actual place. Thus being evocative of the plot of the Sci-Fi movie Matrix (1999), in which the physical body stays in a bunk while the consciousness acts in a virtual place.

Martina Menegon, All Around Me Are Familiar Faces, artistic VR experience, still, 2018

In 1991, Hans Moravec wrote in his essay The Universal Robot that the human body is disused and won’t be necessary in our future anymore. He said it would be possible to download one’s consciousness to a computer. By transferring the mind to a technological medium the body would becomes insignificant. As a result human beings would not be embodied and their existence would not depend on biological mortality anymore. Consequently human beings would become immortal.

With recent technological progress Moravec’s idea no longer seems completely absurd. Virtual Reality (VR) as a technological and artistic medium enables users to experience disembodiment. The exhibition THIS COULD BE YOU. Disembodiment in Virtual Reality is dedicated to the feeling of incorporeality. The title refers to Zeesy Powers’ eponymous VR artwork, in which the user inhabits the body of an old woman. Over the course of time the body of the old woman becomes the body of the user. Entering a virtual world allow users to immerse themselves in a completely different place without a physical body. There, users can be everyone and everything. Feeling present in the virtual space, makes them forget about their bodies in reality.

VR experiences implicate future living scenarios but also reflect the current state of our society and its relation to technology. Claire Hentschker shows a deserted world without any humans. While reflecting the presence, her work gives an impression of what a disembodied future of formerly inhabited places could look like. Jessy Jetpacks plays with the re-embodiment in the virtual room and questions wether our bodies have a memory and if such an experience has consequences. Martina Menegon and Zeesy Powers also confront the users with bodies that are not theirs. While Menegon provides her 3D scanned face as a mask-like object, the users interact with; Powers mirrors the user as a 90 years old woman. By doing so, they create a vision of what life with an immaterial body could be like and what it might or might not feel like.

THIS COULD BE YOU. Disembodiment in Virtual Reality is part of the Overkill Festival 2018 in Enschede (NL). The festival regroups art, games, movies and performances and opens a new discourse.

The artistic VR experiences are presented in cooperation with Radiance VR.

Link to the Facebook Event

Website of Overkill Festival

peer to space at Kunst und Immersion – Herbstakademie Leipzig

The peer to space team participates in this year’s Herbstakademie at Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, Germany, on the subject of Kunst und Immersion – Herbstakademie. Peggy Schoenegge will give a talk and Tina Sauerlaender will moderate a panel discussion with Prof. Dr. Martina Leeker, Peggy Schoenegge and Andreas Wolfsteiner on November 30, 2018.

This is Fake und Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig invite to a three-day academy with lectures, workshops and a panel discussion with various theorists* dealing with the potentials, problems, and limits of the perception phenomenon "immersion" in (digital) art and beyond.

HGB Leipzig - November 30 to December 2, 2018

Further information

peer to space’s curator Peggy Schoenegge at Process Festival

Peggy Schoenegge will give a talk about her work as a curator with a focus on digital and new media art at this year’s Process Festival, Dortmund on October 6th. The topic of the festival is humans and machines. In keeping with the theme Peggy will especially concentrate on this relationship in her work. She will also bring two VR artworks by Martina Menegon and The Swan Collective, presented by Radiance VR.

Further information and program

peer to space's new online exhibition

CLAIMING NEEDLES

Positions of Contemporary Embroidery Art

Curated by: Peggy Schoenegge and Darja Zub

Presented by: peer to space

Exhibition design by: Emilie Gervais

With the online exhibition CLAIMING NEEDLES, peer to space explores definitions of embroidery art, its topics and materials. 54 international artists present their works in the exhibition, showcasing embroidery as an artistic tool from the contemporary perspective, revealing different approaches on embroidery as well as various topics such as gender, science, digitalization, urbanity, politics or social criticism that are dealt with and reflected by the medium. These approaches extend the critical realm of embroidery as an artistic tool.

Artists: Tanya Akhmetgalieva, Alma Alloro, Ana Teresa Barboza, Alexandra Baumgartner, Danielle Clough, Dave Cole, Liz Collins, Ruth Cuthand, Erika Diamond, Birgit Dieker, Jochen Flinzer, Gabriele Fulterer & Christine Scherrer, Anja Fussbach, Michelle Hamer, Sally Hewett, Barb Hunt, Aya Kakeda, Katika, Alexandra Knie, Dinah Kübeck, Jan Kuck, Rebecca Levi, Aubrey Longley-Cook, Roby Love, LoVid, Katrina Majkut, Niina Mantsinen, Jamie Martinez, Elisabeth Masé, Victoria May, Cat Mazza, Reija Meriläinen, Carol Milne, Julia Neuenhausen, Natasza Niedziolka, Shanell Papp, Anja Claudia Pentrop, Cordula Prieser, Anna Ray, Karolin Reichardt, Fiene Scharp, Noora Schroderus, Kathryn Shinko, Annegret Soltau, Laura Splan, Jonny Star, Marion Strunk, Anna Talens, Marianne Thoermer, Kata Unger, Sanni Weckmann, Shea Wilkinson, Jessica Wohl

claiming-needles.net

peer to space at VRHAM!

peer to space’s director Tina Sauerlaender and curator Peggy Schoenegge are part of this year’s VRHAM! Festival in Hamburg, Germany. Tina is part of the jury as well as moderating the panel on VR and art VR here to talk! on Saturday, June 9th at 5 pm. Peggy will open the discourse program with a keynote What the f*** is VR on Thursday, June 7th 2018.

VRHAM! – Virtual Reality and Art Festival Hamburg 2018

June 7th to June 17th 2018

VRHAM! is Germany’s first artistic Virtual Reality festival. VRHAM! is presenting a large variety of outstanding international VR experiences in Hamburg’s Oberhafenquartier, unique in its form and sure to transcend the borders of traditional perception and experience of art.

Further information and program

peer to space’s curator Peggy Schoenegge at A MAZE Festival

Peggy Schoenegge will be part of this year’s jury for the A MAZE AWARD together with Sarah Northway (CA), Robert Yang (US); Jack King-Spooner (UK), and Leena Kejriwal (IN) and participates in the panel „Digital Exhibits and the 2nd Spring of Virtual Art Spaces“ moderated by Torsten Wiedemann on Friday, April 27th, 11 to 12 am.

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A MAZE. 7th International Games and Playful Media Festival

April 25th to April 29th at Urban Spree, Revaler Straße 99 10245 Berlin

A MAZE. is an international festival focusing on the art and culture of games and playful media. It invites the general public to experience inspiring talks, workshops, music, and an exhibition.

Further information and program

UNCANNY CONDITIONS - A Virtual Reality Exhibition

Artists: Salome Asega & Reese Donohue & Tongkwai Lulin (US), Geoffrey Lillemon (FR), Martina Menegon (IT/AT), Jakob Kudsk Steensen (DK/US)

Curated by: Tina Sauerländer and Peggy Schoenegge

Exhibition at whiteBOX, Atelierstraße 1, 81671 Munich, Germany // For FNY Festival, Werksviertel, Munich, Germany // Opening: September 1 // Duration: September 1–10, 2017

The VR exhibition UNCANNY CONDITIONS delves into the challenges of human living in the digital age reflected in four artistic virtual reality experiences. Uncanny means strange or mysterious and refers to something beyond the ordinary or normal. The term Uncanny Valley refers to robots or avatars designed as humanoids. They appear almost, but never exactly, human and evoke an uncanny irritation for the viewer, a lack of authenticity. In this sense, uncanniness could also refer to digitally created imagery almost indistinguishable from reality. All these meanings occur in the virtual reality exhibition UNCANNY CONDITIONS.

Salome Asega, Reese Donohue and Tongkwai Lulin (US) ASM(V)R, 2017, artistic VR experience

Geoffrey Lillemon (FR) The Nail Polish Inferno @ La Vilette, Virtual Reality Retrospective Strip Club Nightmare set in Bubblegum Hell, 2016, artistic VR experience

Martina Menegon (IT/AT) plug your nose and try to hum, 2017, virtual reality installation

Jakob Kudsk Steensen (DK/US) Aquaphobia, 2017, virtual reality installation

http://www.fny-festival.com/ // http://www.whitebox.art/

www.peertospace.eu/uncanny-conditions

CAT HEROICUS SUBLIMIS - peer to space's new online show

The online exhibition Cat Heroicus Sublimis curated by Tina Sauerländer and Peggy Schoenegge explores the artistic use abstract visual language in the Digital Age.

Available at: www.newhive.com/peertospace/catheroicussublimis  

Participating artists: Helena Acosta, Alma Alloro, Maggy Almao, Anthony Antonellis, Kim Asendorf, LaTurbo Avedon, Domenico Barra, Uğur Engin Deniz, Mark Dorf, César Escudero Andaluz, Dor Even-Chen, Ole Fach, Ornella Fieres, Katherine Frazer, Carla Gannis, Sara Goodman, Claudia Hart, Philip Hausmeier, Paul Hertz, Faith Holland, Mark Klink, Erica Lapadat-Janzen, Gretta Louw, LoVid, Vince Mckelvie, Rosa Menkman, Lorna Mills, Brenna Murphy, Zach Nader, Od Niwr, Eva Papamargariti, Will Pappenheimer, Michael Pelletier, Niko Princen, Casey Reas, Antonio Roberts, Rachel Rossin, Cecilia Salama, Nicolas Sassoon, Robert Seidel, Yoshi Sodeoka, Anne Spalter, Mathieu St-Pierre, Phillip Stearns, Daniel Temkin, Giselle Zatonyl, Erik Zepka, Damon Zucconi

Image: Will Pappenheimer, Bufo Virtanus Heroicus Sublimis