Digital Decade Special Edition 2020
Digital Decade is a series of phygital art events launched by Designcollector Creative Network founder, Arseny Vesnin. Since 2013 Designcollector have presented events in London, Barcelona and Saint Petersburg, featuring more than 150 artists in total. For the past seven years artists have been invited to respond to the geopolitical, environmental, social changes taking place today in the digital age.
Artists 2020: Aristarkh Chernyshev, Azamat Akhmadbaev, Dimitri Daniloff, Gregoire A. Meyer, Joëlle Snaith, Arseny Vesnin (curator), Krista Kim and Eliska Sky
2020 started a new Decade with digital. Digital media have become a significant part of our lives, bringing everyday challenges and new opportunities in all layers of our global society. Nobody’s left behind by this whirlpool of change. There is no doubt that the influence of digital media has provided much food for thought for artists. We asked a few of them to share their visual thoughts on post-2020 life and on the huge tectonic shifts happening around us.
VR/3D Exhibition “Digital Decade SE 2020”
Digital Decade SE (Special Edition) 2020 is the first virtual Digital Decade show happening entirely online. Starting from July our partner Sedition Art released a set of digital artworks, available for affordable collecting as a full set or one by one. You can also experience the Digital Decade SE VR/3D Exhibition online.
Artists for Digital Decade SE 2020
Aristarkh Chernyshev:
No Color, No Taste, No Odour, or Critical Update
ISOLATION
ISOLATION
Aristarkh Chernyshev was born in Voroshilovgrad (Lugansk), USSR, in 1968 and graduated from The Moscow State Technical University in 1991. He has been working in-between new media and contemporary art since early 90’s. From 1996 to 2005 he has produced several interactive installations together with Vladislav Efimov. From 2000 to 2004 he was running Media Lab at the National Center for Contemporary Arts in Moscow. Aristarkh has participated in numerous exhibitions and festivals both in Russia and internationally. In 2004 he co-founded Electroboutique gallery in Moscow. His works have appeared in major International art fairs and at galleries around the world including the Museum of Moscow, the London Science Museum, Whitechapel Gallery, Museum Art Architecture Technology Lisboa, Seoul Museum of Art and the National Art Museum of China. Aristarkh Chernyshev lives and works in Moscow
...the project “No Color, No Taste, No Odour, or Critical Update” demonstrates one of the possible scenarios in which social networks will provide not only information and communication, not only the possibility of augmented reality, but also the physical distribution of various goods and services. One of these services is “Critical Update”, which is similar to updating the operating system of a smartphone or a computer, except that it applies to a person. This is a utopian model of the functioning of the body, as the shell of our personality, which is constantly in need of repair, patches and replacement of worn-out blocks...
Azamat Akhmadbaev: Bite Tongues, Deep Breaths
Azamat Akhmadbaev (b.1991, Karachayevsk, Karachay-Cherkess Republic, Russia) is a visual artist who lives and works in Saint Petersburg, Russia. He works across many disciplines including painting, photography, video and digital art. His artworks operates in the gap between glitch art, abstraction, minimalism and graphic art. Also he is a founder/editor-in-chief of @dontpostme_magazine - a magazine about contemporary art. Private collections in Russia, Spain, the USA, the UK and Poland.
BITE TONGUE, DEEP BREATHS, 2020 is a part of the ongoing series of digital artworks by Azamat Akhmadbaev.
This artwork continues to explore the limits of digital art world, and it was inspired by a song by Clams Casino & Imogen Heap ‘I’m God’.
Having taken the repeating words ‘bite tongue, deep breaths’ from the song, the artist has transformed a sampled song’s melody and text into the colourful artwork with infinite number of layers. Using glitched, vandalised images and texts (in a special, manually designed fonts) as brushes on a digital canvas, Akhmadbaev represents a dualism of the digital and the real, physical world. Technically, the artist checks out the ability of auto and manual software tools to create the image with glitched, lost, degraded effects. Conceptually, the artist launches the self-reflexive process with a manifestation of his attitude to the legacy of the post-war (abstract painting) and 90’s (usage of computer technologies in art) periods. And references to the popular song are the digitally manipulated links with culture and time in history discourse.
Joëlle Snaith: Distortion
Joëlle (b. 1982) is a South African visual artist and designer whose work is focused on exploring the connection between sound and form.
Her approach is highly experimental, producing an output that is often unexpected and unknown at the start. She works primarily in the field of realtime visuals and live performance, using audio to drive motion, resulting in forms that are largely sculpted by sound. Using frequencies and minimal structures she embraces the imperfections that emerge from her process as she tries to capture the atmosphere and emotions that she feels in the moment.
Commissions and collaborations include MIRA Festival (Barcelona) alongside Andy Stott, Re-Textured Festival with SPEKTRA (London), Field Maneuvers (London), OFFF Mexico City with Aldo Aréchar, OFFF Barcelona with Joshua Davis and OFFF Vienna. She’s collaborated with Killawatt, Counterstrike and Ancestral Voices on a number of audiovisual projects. Her work has been exhibited at Digital Decade (London), Elixir Poetry Festival (Terrassa), Athens Digital Arts Festival and Sónar Hong Kong.
She has a residency as a visual artist at FOLD in London and speaks regularly at design festivals where she shares insights into her tools and process.
Joëlle also works as a product designer, creating elegant and usable experiences while exploring how humans interact with technology.
She lives and works in London, UK.
Cut from original video: Distortion
“Distortion” is an audiovisual trip into a future where reality and dreams exist within an atmosphere of uncertainty and unease. The frequencies of the soundtrack, designed by Killawatt, amplify a sense of anxiety which is further magnified by the sonically synchronised and distorted audio visualisation.
Dimitri Daniloff: Human Unlimited
As the son of a sculptor, Dimitri Daniloff (b.1970, France) has developed a body awareness from an early age. He has since cultivated a connection to texture and materiality. Fascinated by the numerous possibilities that technique has to offer, he first experimented with 4x5 view cameras and then turned to the practice of digital art. A shift, since he then started to transform his images. He now produces new scenes of everyday life by assembling raw elements with real subjects – always finding the right balance between authenticity and fiction. His campaign for PlayStation is a great example of this tension: deconstructed bodies knocking together and questioning our boundaries.
Another turning point in this creative artist’s career was his collaboration with electronic music band Daft Punk. Producing the Virtual Girl project (2008), he integrated 3D creations into his existing pictures, thus proposing his own vision of an augmented human being. A few years later, Dimitri Daniloff started focusing on photogrammetry – a process consisting in taking measurements in a space and build, through a software, a 3D model from several viewpoints
By integrating this technique into his practice, he inserted the virtual world into the real world. He created, in collaboration with plastic artist Tamal De Canela, L’humain illimité (The unlimited human), a project built around a virtual character still anchored into reality. Cleared from his corporeal envelope, the subject – half-man, half-God – pushes the limits of 2D image, body and thoughts. In this undefined space and time, borders no longer exist and humankind – and its extensions – finds its independence. The modern Prometheus owns as many masks as there are identities. “Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth”, Oscar Wilde said with irony.
Appearances press Dimitri Daniloff to question the flaws of men - what still resists. And in this quest, the artist surrounds himself with other specialists: dancers, architects, decorators or even graphic designers. Highlighting the vulnerability of mankind thus turns into a political act, turning the stage around. More than a plastic artist, Dimitri Daniloff prevails as a sculptor of reality.
In January 2019 Daniloff was invited by EDF ODYSS ELEC (France) to make his first VR piece in collaboration with Ferdinand Dervieux. The piece was supposed to be presented at the VR Arles Festival but will be presented in an other event linked to VR Arles Festival later in 2020.
A small, intimate room that protects us from vastness. As "The Milkmaid" by Vermeer, we inhabit the space, lost in our thoughts. But in this room we are not lost, we inhabit the virtual world, with a space that protects us. A virtual space, which is also real, two universes that meet, that confront each other. Above all they complement each other, the virtual space does not try to resemble the real world, it finds its own space, which is the combination of both. And that is the freedom of these rooms without a roof, that we can enter and exit, from both worlds, as if they were one.
And we can penetrate them, they are not photos, they are rooms, they are spaces to enter, to become part of the image. Become shell, like these people, like these characters, be statues, rigid, colorless, be bodies, sensual, Greek, perfect, imperfect, full of defects, like existence itself, but we multiply, and we can observe from different angles.
We can challenge perspectives, windows that do not fit, but do not want to. Invert the process, create something, stop organizing everything and then take a picture, start with photogrammetry, to create the image with the captured elements, inventing combinations, unexpected, open to amazement. Enter everyday objects, as if it were every day.
And the looks remind us that it is the real world, that they can be confused, that we can be gods, above, we can invite the skull to a world without death, to a world where there will be no end, where our identity is fragmented, like small pieces, never erased, we leave traces of us in this virtual world.
These images, photos and non-photos, inhabit the appeared world, which does not want to be real, or virtual, because it is both and that’s what gives it its strength, its limitlessness and its uniqueness. A universe where flying is allowed. Where originality dwells, an authentic universe that resembles to what he has dreamed of himself. A Human Unlimited
Krista Kim: Continuum Remix v1
Krista Kim is a contemporary artist and founder of the Techism movement since 2014, promoting the confluence of art and technology, and technological innovation as a medium to further the development of digital humanism. She believes that artists must participate at the vanguard of technological innovation in order to contribute to the creation of future culture during this pivotal period of innovation and disruption.
Forbes described Krista Kim as the “new digital Rothko”, and she was recently chosen by LANVIN to collaborate on their fall/winter collection 2018 with Olivier Lapidus, Creative Director. Kim was the first artist in history to exhibit on the iconic square of Palais de Tokyo Museum and the Museum of Modern art of Paris for Nuit Blanche 2018. Kim earned her Masters of Arts Fine Arts from LASALLE College of the Arts / Goldsmiths, University of London in 2014. She completed her undergraduate studies in Political Science at the University of Toronto.
Krista was a keynote speaker for “Art for Healing” during Paris Healthcare Week 2018 for UIA - PHG, one of the working bodies of the UIA, the Union International des Architects or International Union of Architects, with members from all continents and a growing participation from more than 60 countries since 2012.
“Meditation will save us from the machine; art will save us from ourselves. I believe in the healing and transformational power of visual art + sound + meditation on an individual and a social level.
Our future is unknown and unstable. There are difficult times ahead due to social and economic unrest due to pandemic risk, digital disruption, automation and climate change. Collective fear is undeniable, but we cannot allow ourselves to be dominated by fear — we must face the unknown with open hearts and mindfulness. In chaos, there is creative opportunity. We must create a better future with compassion and love.
My collaboration with Efren Mur (video artist) and Ligovskoï (electronic music band) was created during the COVID-19 crisis. Our purpose is to present a vision of meditativeness and digital beauty to collective consciousness. The world is forever changed, and we must adapt with mindfulness, self care and connection to creative energy that will help us navigate the unknown.” - Continuum Remix v1
Our future is unknown and unstable. There are difficult times ahead due to social and economic unrest due to pandemic risk, digital disruption, automation and climate change. Collective fear is undeniable, but we cannot allow ourselves to be dominated by fear — we must face the unknown with open hearts and mindfulness. In chaos, there is creative opportunity. We must create a better future with compassion and love.
My collaboration with Efren Mur (video artist) and Ligovskoï (electronic music band) was created during the COVID-19 crisis. Our purpose is to present a vision of meditativeness and digital beauty to collective consciousness. The world is forever changed, and we must adapt with mindfulness, self care and connection to creative energy that will help us navigate the unknown.” - Continuum Remix v1
Cut from original: Continuum Remix v1
Grégoire A. Meyer: When the Drape Falls
Award-winning artist creates digital illustrations that evoke thought-provoking reactions. His art examines the body in its extraordinary simplicity as a biological, digital and aesthetic organism. He captures the essence of fleeting moments, like a splash of water or a disintegrating face, and freezes them in time in objects that appear almost tangible. His works create a complex relationship between fact and fiction.
“The horse represents our last hope and challenges the concept of black as darkness and as the drapes slips off with its own weight - the future of humanity will be exposed..” - When the Drape Falls
Eliška Sky: Ultrahumans
Eliška Sky Kyselková is a Czech Artist & Art Director using the medium of photography and film to capture the diversity of beauty with her surrealistic vision. She is known for her elaborate fashion projects involving large scale set design and also playful art series exploring the forms of the human body. Eliška Sky is the former digital creative consultant for Vogue Czechoslovakia, current Canon ambassador and her works were exhibited at international shows in Prague, New York, Paris, London, Hong Kong and Helsinki. She regularly creates concepts & editorials for fashion publications and magazines. To mention some highlights, she photographed the supermodel Martha Hunt in New York for Numero Russia cover story, unique beauty Melanie Gaydos for Vogue Italia, muses Niko Riam and Michael Moon in Iceland also for Vogue Italia and modern icons Hungry and Salvia for Vogue Czechoslovakia. Advertising clients include brands like Puma and Preciosa crystals. Eliška Sky was awarded the winner of Portrait of Britain 2018, Hasselblad Masters finalist 2018 and overall winner of Diversity Now! by i-D magazine in 2015. She was selected as Fresh Eyes Talent 2020. Magazine Forbes selected Eliška among 4 Czech female photographers who dominate the fashion industry in the year 2019. She graduated from the masters in fashion photography at London College of Fashion at the University of the Arts and currently lives in London.
“Welcome in the futuristic world, where you can be fully original and express your individuality through the fashion and styling. In the world, where you can be Ultrahumans. The editorial expressing the individuality, self-expression and FREEDOM.”
Digital Decade VR Exhibition
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