The symposium is organized by peer to space’s director Tina Sauerlaender.
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.
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
ENVISIONING THE FUTURE – VR Art Exhibition in Washington D.C – co-curated by Tina Sauerlaender
Artists: A / A (Germany), Banz & Bowinkel (Germany), Scott Benesiinaabandan (Canada), Julian Bonequi (Mexico), Paloma Dawkins (Canada), Claudia Hart (USA), Jakob Kudsk Steensen (Denmark/USA)
Curators: Erandy Vergara and Tina Sauerlaender
Our future is constantly redefined and renegotiated in both real and virtual spaces in times of political tension between communities, countries, and cultures. Curiosity and the spirit of discovery juxtapose resentments and fear towards the yet unknown or the so-called Other. Yet the Other struggles to create spaces and to envision a future she/he is actively a part of.
Seven artists from different geographic locations and backgrounds discuss worldviews in utopian or apocalyptic, cultural or natural contexts in their virtual artworks. They are hypothetical imaginations that reflect about possible states for worlds. Together, they ask what is the future we would like to live in and how can we get there? They call us to rethink the present in order to envision the future.
The artists take us to parallel worlds: apocalytpic moments (A / A, Germany); archipelagos removed from physical laws (Banz & Bowinkel, Germany); native Canadian history and future visions (Scott Benesiinaabandan, Canada); human birth and death on Earth and on Mars (Julian Bonequi, Mexico); journey into the fabled unknown (Paloma Dawkins, Canada); liminal and mythological wonderlands (Claudia Hart, USA); tourism and technology facing climate change (Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Denmark/USA). All artists use Virtual Reality, the new medium in art, as their tool of expression. This medium creates a blank space for new visions. In virtual reality, the viewers are in the center and surrounded entirely. They decide where to look and where to go; they co-shape the world they are in. Viewers are assigned the active role of the user. Just like the virtual artwork is complete through the actions of the users, these users are also are able to rethink and reshape their own physical reality.
This selection of current VR projects 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).
Invited by the Goethe-Institut and Studio XX in Montréal, they developed the concept for their exhibition series “Critical Approaches in Virtual Reality Art”, where this exhibition Envisioning the Future is part of.
October 24 to 28, 2018 at Halcyon Arts Lab, Washington D.C
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 curator Peggy Schoenegge at Vienna Design Week
Peggy Schoenegge will be part of the Designing Conference 2 at this year’s Vienna Design Week. She gives the talk „Art Unframed – VR als künstlerisches Medium“ and will be talking about VR as an artistic medium on October 4th, 5 pm.
Vienna Design Week
September 29th to October 7th, 2018
Further informations 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
Kate Durbin's Unfriend Me Now!
SCREENING and ARTIST TALK with Kate Durbin, Los Angeles-based artist and writer.
Kate Durbin's new film Unfriend Me Now! is an exorcism of the rhetorical wars on Facebook over Donald Trump's election in the US. Using the figure of the clown and the white box of the Facebook timeline, Unfriend Me Now! explores the co-option of rage by corporate interests, and the ways we communicate our political views online in the 21st century. After the film screening, Kate Durbin will be in conversation with Berlin-based curator Tina Sauerlaender (peer to space)
August 20, 2018, 7.30 pm at OMO Artspace, Hertzbergstr. 14, 12055 Berlin
Event by peer to space & OMO artspace
August And Everything After
Peer to space's founder Tina Sauerlaender curated the August exhibition August And Everything After for the ACTIVATAR App featuring works by Bianca Kennedy, Faith Holland and Tamiko Thiel. Download the App or check out activatar.org.
New documentation film: THE UNFRAMED WORLD
peer to space's new documentation film of the exhibition THE UNFRAMED WORLD is out! On our YouTube channel you also find the video documentations of further exhibitions.
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.
PENDORAN VINCI. Art and Artificial Intelligence Today
peer to space's team curates a show on art and artificial intelligence today. The AI on neuronaming.net randomly generated the exhibition title PENDORAN VINCI. It evokes Leonardo Da Vinci, the Renaissance painter remembered as a homo universalis, a polymath, and an omniscient sage. In our globally networked society, all knowledge is turned into electronic data and assembled online. Who takes the mastermind's place today? AI generates, structures, and customizes big data. With AI, did we open Pendoran’s, er…, Pandora’s box?
Faith Holland, Hello Barbie, video and interactive installation, 2018 © the artist
Artists: Nora Al-Badri & Jan Nikolai Nelles (DE), Jonas Blume (DE) Justine Emard (FR), Carla Gannis (US), Sofian Audry and Erin Gee (CAN), Liat Grayver (ISR/DE), Faith Holland (US), Tuomas A. Laitinen (FI), and William Latham (UK)
Initiated and hosted by Leoni Spiekermann (ARTGATE Consulting)
Duration: June 9, 2018 - August 19, 2018
At NRW Forum Düsseldorf, Ehrenhof 2, 40479 Düsseldorf, Germany
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.
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
peer to space at DIGIFEST in Toronto
Install view: Li Alin, Enter Me Tonight, House of Electronic Arts Basel, 2017 / Photo by Franz Wamhof
VR projects at Digifest:
H.E.A.R.T. by Erin Gee and Alex M. Lee
Enter Me Tonight by Li Alin
Presented by the Goethe-Institut Toronto
Curated by Tina Sauerlaender (Berlin) and Erandy Vergara (Montreal)
At the invitation of the Goethe-Institut curators Tina Sauerländer and Erandy Vergara have selected VR works for this year’s Toronto Digifest, including two recent pieces by Berlin-based Canadian artist Li Alin and Montreal-based artist Erin Gee in collaboration with South Korean-born, US-based artist Alex M. Lee. The artists use humor and irony to engage in controversial topics: emotions in first-person shooter video games and war in the case of Gee, and a futuristic exploration on human reproduction in technology-oriented times in the case of Alin.
Further information here / Tina Sauerlaender on the Goethe Blog.
UNCANNY CONDITIONS documentation video is out
You can now watch peer to space's documentation video of the VR exhibition UNCANNY CONDITIONS that took place at whiteBOX as a part of the FNY Festival in Munich last year - More information here.
PECHA KUCHA ART NIGHT about NETWORKS
January 31, 2018, 7.30 pm at Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin
Ein Abend. 12 Vorträge à 6 Minuten 40 Sekunden. Je 20 Bilder.
Moderiert von:
Yvonne Zindel (geb. Reiners) und Tina Sauerländer
Netzwerke sind in der Kunstwelt omnipräsent. Sie manifestieren sich in der Form von Kooperationen, Vereinen, Verbänden oder interaktiven, partizipativen sozialen Skulpturen, Salons sowie ihren Äquivalenten in der virtuellen Welt. Aber was bedeuten Netzwerke für KuratorInnen, KünstlerInnen, KunsthistorikerInnen und andere Akteure der Kunstszene eigentlich? In Kurzvorträgen im Pecha Kucha-Format beleuchten die SprecherInnen aus der (Berliner) Kunstszene die Bedeutung des Netzwerks als Plattform für Austausch, gegenseitige Stärkung und nicht zuletzt als eine (produktive) Metapher für menschliche Zusammenarbeit.
Die Veranstaltung wird organisiert von Performing Encounters und peer to space
DEEP WATER CULTURES at GOETHE INSTITUT MONTRÉAL
Window Projections curated by Tina Sauerlaender. Projected on the Goethe-Institut's windows on St-Laurent Boul. and Ontario St., Montréal, Canada.
Water, often referred to as the essence of life, is also the foundation of the cultural development of humans. Today water is used, applied and presented in a multitude of ways. The works by the artists Jonas Blume, Marte Kiessling and Anuk Miladinović center on the topic how humankind handles its most important element.
Credits: Anuk Miladinovic, Dream, 2016 // Marte Kiessling, Camac, 2014 // Jonas Blume, Iso-E-Super, 2017
Further Information here
Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?*
This event is co-organized by peer to space's director Tina Sauerlaender who also founded the SALOON, a network for females working in the art scenes in Berlin, Paris and Vienna. This public event entitled Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? after an essay by LInda Nochlin (1971) introduces 8 SALOON members who will speak about females in art in short presentations.
Radiance VR - The new online platform for VR Art
Radiance is an online research platform and database for artistic VR experiences founded by Philip Hausmeier (Metaphysiscs VR) and Tina Sauerlaender (peer to space). Its mission is to present visual artists from all over the world working in the medium of Virtual Reality. Radiance wants to create visibility and accessibility for VR art and for a faster adoption of virtual technologies in general. Outside of huge VR industries like gaming, artistic VR experiences will become more visible and impact society through museum shows and eventually through everyone’s living rooms.
Artists: A / A, Mert Akbal, Li Alin, Salome Asega & Reese Donohue & Tongkwai Lulin, Banz & Bowinkel, Jörg Brinkmann, Leo Castaneda, Magali Daniaux & Cédric Pigot, Claudia Hart, Claire Hentschker, Martha Hipley, Rindon Johnson, Marc Lee, Serena Lee, Olivia Mc Gilchrist, Martina Menegon, Mélodie Mousset & Naëm Baron, Zeesy Powers, Tabita Rezaire, Dennis Rudolph, Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Miyö Van Stenis, The Swan Collective, Tamiko Thiel, Fiona Valentine Thomann, Theo Triantafyllidis… more soon.
Slideshow: artistic VR experiences by Martina Menegon, plug your noise and try to hum, 2017 // Li Alin, Enter Me Tonight, 2016 // Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Dome of Gated Ecologies, 2017 // Tabita Rezaire, Premium Connect (Real Deal), 2017 // Rindon Johnson, My Daughter Aaliyah, 2016 // The Swan Collective, NowForeVR, 2017
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.
