Pixxelpoint 2023

Numen/For Use

Net

Ambient installation
Mestna galerija Nova Gorica

The artist group/collective Numen/For Use, consisting of Sven Jonke, Christoph Katzler, and Nikola Radeljković, has established itself in the art world with its innovative and interactive installations that transcend the traditional boundaries between art, design, and architecture. Their work focuses on the intersection of art, design, and architecture, and, often placing viewers and users at the centre of the experience, encouraging reflection on space, physicality, and interconnectedness. The group’s members come from Croatia and Austria, and their work is often showcased around the world.

One of their most famous installations is Net, a conceptual installation that, at its core, explores the human connection to space and to other people. The artists create an impressive net that stretches through the space, using elastic ropes that are stretched between the walls, ceiling, and floor. This magnificent grid becomes a space for exploration, interaction, and reflection. Visitors can enter and walk around the net, swing, climb, and discover new perspectives, becoming a part of it. The installation encourages a sense of freedom and connectedness, but also a sense of vulnerability and insecurity as visitors move through the heights and the complex construction. It is a remarkable experience that evokes a sense of existence and the intertwining relationships in a contemporary urban environment.

The central characteristic of Net and other creations by Numen/For Use is that they explore space and form in a unique and exceptional way, while actively involving visitors in their artistic processes. The installations are designed for exploration and interaction, often enthralling and surprising visitors with the sensation of floating and the exploration of structures from atypical perspectives. The result is a »soft« object that deforms and changes with the movement of the visitors. The outer membrane acts as a light diffuser or even as a projection screen when the space is illuminated from the inside.

Net is thus not only a work of art, but also a space for social interaction, for exploring the human relationship to space and to other humans, and for reflecting on our own network of mutual relationships. Through this installation, Numen/For Use effectively builds on its exploration of the boundaries between art, design, and architecture, providing visitors a unique opportunity for in-depth reflection on the global networked world.

Numen/For Use is a collective working in the fields of conceptual art, scenography, and industrial and spatial design. The group first formed in 1998 as a collaborative effort of industrial designers Sven Jonke, Christoph Katzler, and Nikola Radeljković under the banner For Use.

In 1999, they established Numen as a collective identity covering all projects actualized outside the sphere of industrial design. The group’s early enterprises are characterized by experiments with impersonal design and radical formal reduction, deeply rooted in the tradition of high modernism and mainly applied to various synergetic total-design projects in Croatia. From 2004 onwards, after setting up a large-scale site-specific project for the production of Inferno at the National Centre for Drama in Madrid, Numen/For Use became intensely involved in scenography. Further realizations in theatres across Europe ensued.

Since 2008, the collective has turned its focus towards configuring objects and concepts without a predefined function, an activity resulting in more hybrid and experimental works such as the N-Light series and Tape Installation. Parallel to these publicly exposed ventures, the group has won several international awards for its accomplishments in the field of industrial and set design.

https://numen.eu/home/news/

Art Rebel 9 (SI)

Planica Virtual Ski Jumping Hill

VR installation
Xcenter

Art Rebel 9 has used technology to create a virtual ski jumping experience. Virtual reality allows a wider range of people to experience atmospheres that were previously the privilege of only a few. At the Pixxelpoint International Festival, thanks to Oculus Rift technology, visitors will be able to experience at least a little of the adrenaline that rushes through the top ski jumpers as they push off into the distance at the end of the runway.

Formed in 1991, Art Rebel 9 is an interactive production company that combines emerging technologies with tailored storytelling to produce comprehensive solutions that go beyond imagination and help business partners build their reputation. They help to identify, build, establish, and realize promising business opportunities and ideas that stimulate new generations of consumers. Art Rebel 9 combines extraordinary multimedia, business model innovation, and comprehensive financial support to make a difference.

https://www.artrebel9.com

Boštjan Čadež (SI)

Line Rider: Plane and Simple

2023, VR Creative toy
Xcenter

Produkcija | Production: Aksioma – Zavod za sodobne umetnosti, v okviru: konS – Platforma za sodobno raziskovalno umetnost | Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, in the framework of konS – Platform for Contemporary Investigative Art

Line Rider: Plane and Simple is the author’s attempt to transfer the original game’s expressiveness into the world of virtual reality. The original game was awarded the prestigious Game Developers Choice Award in the innovation category, which recognizes games that demonstrate innovation and push the boundaries of games as an expressive medium. Due to its simple and intuitive user interface, it became a true internet phenomenon and was featured on numerous popular websites (from Yahoo to Time Magazine), covered in game magazines and the New York Times, and used as an educational tool for learning physics. It had 34 million downloads and ranked seventh on the Google Zeitgeist list of most popular searches. The toy was plagiarized and the subject of many variations and adaptations, but most importantly, it inspired many players who shared their creations through online videos. The website http://bevibeldesign.com/line-rider-archival-project offers an archive curated by Bevibel Harvey, containing over 25,000 sledding adventures created by more than a thousand creative individuals.

Boštjan Čadež is a new-media artist whose interdisciplinary practice explores the intersections of art, technology, and human experience. His innovative installations and performances often challenge the boundaries between the digital and physical worlds, incorporating elements such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, robotics, and real-time data processing. Čadež’s art is characterized by a dynamism and unique life that stems from the algorithms and guidelines he uses to shape his works. His interest in simple guidelines from which an infinite number of images or situations arise, which are never the same, is one of the key aspects of his creations. His works often include interaction with viewers, who with their involvement become part of the artistic experience and at the same time co-create the work they observe.

https://www.bostjancadez.art/en/bio

Barbara Jazbec (SI)

EERIE ME

Mixed media, 2021-2022, Linz (AT) and Ogaki (JPN)
Xcenter

EERIE ME is a series of interactive sculptures that explore the relationship between a creation and its creator. They are creatures that embody human and non-human appearances.

The artist explores ways to hack and modify toys so that they become more or less human, giving them personal traits. The creatures dig deep down into the world of uncanniness. The objects themselves do not yet have an intelligence of their own. They live based on the spectators’ interactions.

The project is a comment on the future of technology. Humans are not immortal, but the tales of our desire and obsession with youth and immortality go back in history. Tales of immortal beings, and of means through which humans too can cheat death are part of mythologies worldwide. Great minds have spent lifetimes seeking a cure for death, and today our hopes have turned to digital technologies. The idea is that these technologies may promise us a form of immortality. It might transpire in the future that we will have the power to retain our consciousness and find a new shell for it, and thereby build a new body to trap our ghost forever. The artist tries to add a part of herself – her material past and memories – into these toys. The toy as a totem, contrived through the artist’s memories, overcomes the limited social perceptions of the toy’s utility and leaves the ghost of these memories for the future, by capturing it in forms from her personal past.

Barbara Jazbec is an intermedia artist from Trbovlje, Slovenia. She was awarded a BA in Media and Arts from the Tampere University of Applied Sciences in Finland. She recently finished the Interface Cultures MA programme in Linz, Austria. Her background is mainly in working with 360° video and video installations. Her latest research interests are mostly focused on interactive installations and creating new interactive sculptures out of second-hand toys such as Furby and Robot Dog. In her work, she merges odd personal experiences with sci-fi futurism and a tinge of humour. She finds beauty in strange and odd things.

Barbara organizes and leads different experimental video workshops and is the curator of the international video festival DigitalBigScreen 360° in Trbovlje, Slovenia, which runs at the same time as Speculum Artium. Her works have been exhibited in Japan, China, South Korea, Canada, Finland, Slovenia, Romania, Luxembourg, Austria, and England.

Nika Oblak & Primož Novak (SI)

The Kiss

2023, video installation
Xcenter

In the video installation The Kiss, the protagonists, each trapped inside their own monitor, attempt to kiss each other. A kiss sometimes connects the digital space of two screens, but often it does not, and the two protagonists remain asynchronous, each in their own dimension.

The performative action is a reference to today’s time, where we increasingly communicate via various screens, applications, social networks, etc., while at the same time we are losing authentic, primal contact with fellow human beings. The installation is poetic and contemplative, the title alludes to the famous statue of Rodin and Brancusi, but The Kiss is placed in the current context of contemporary media society.

Nika Oblak and Primož Novak have been working collectively since 2003. In their art practice, they examine contemporary media and capital driven society as they dissect its visual and linguistic structure. Oblak and Novak have exhibited worldwide in venues such as the Sharjah Biennial (UAE), the Japan Media Arts Festival, Tokyo (JP), the Istanbul Biennial (TR), the Biennale Cuvee, Linz (AT), Transmediale Berlin (DE), FILE Sao Paulo (BR), etc. They have received numerous grants and awards, including the CYNETART Award from the Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau in Dresden (DE), an honorary mention from art critics at the Biennale WRO, Wroclaw (PL), a White Aphroid Award for artistic achievement from MMC KIBLA, Maribor (SI) and a Rihard Jakopič honourable mention, awarded by the Association of Slovenian Fine Artists Societies, the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, Moderna Galerija, and the Slovenian Association of Art Critics (SI).

http://www.oblak-novak.org/

Linaá Pulido Barragán (CO)

Qualia

Interactive VR installation
Galerija Tir Mostovna

Technical support: Vahid Qaderi, Razieh Kooshki
Sound Design: Bálint Budai

In philosophy of mind, »qualia« is defined as instances of subjective and conscious experience. The perceived quality of experience is vividly how it feels from the inside, how it is presented, and how things seem to us. Experiences can be richly colourful, monochromatic, unclad, spatial, or kinaesthetic, merge as if they come from unintelligible dimensions, and so on. Qualia, exemplified by sensations like how the blueness of blue feels when we experience it.

How does the perception of reality seem to us?

The artwork Qualia is an individual immersive experience that seeks to alter the viewer’s perceptually diverse range of experiencing realities. Through an optical and virtual sonic landscape, the user is induced to encounter »reality«, which is juxtaposed inside the eyeball and the image from outside.

Volkan Dinçer (TR)

@theorchid_beauty

Installation
Galerija Tir Mostovna

In @theorchid_beauty, the orchid, which becomes a cyborg with the use of implants, integrates social media into its symbiosis. By doing so, the artist would like to present an ironic example of the relationship between capitalism and nature.

This orchid survives on Instagram likes. It has its own Instagram account and uses it for its own needs. When it is in need of water, it posts a selfie on Instagram and is watered with the likes to that post.

The anthropocentric culture of likes and the resulting selection mechanisms are phenomena that orchids, like many other species, have been exposed to for many years. Based on this, the basis of this project revolves around the exploration of potential discourses and questions about human– non-human relationships.

MAalex: Alex Fallica (IT) & Martina Pizzigoni (IT)

I died on Facebook

Interactive VR installation
Galerija Tir Mostovna

I died on Facebook is an artwork that explores the notion of our virtual selves in an increasingly digital world. The work consists of a game experience set in a cemetery, where digital tombstones are named after real deceased people whose Facebook profiles have been memorialized by their loved ones.

Through the gamification of death, the work prompts us to contemplate the impact of our immaterial selves on our physical lives. As we increasingly shift our activities and interactions online, we must consider the fate of our digital counterparts when we die. Do they exist indefinitely, or do they perish too?

In the current context of discussions about the metaverse and the potential of immersive digital environments, I died on Facebook is more relevant than ever. The artwork raises critical questions about the implications of our virtual lives and the potential consequences of prioritizing our online personalities. The interactivity of the installation allows visitors to interact differently depending on whether they experience it on the internet or on-site, enabling a multi-layered engagement with the work.

I died on Facebook is a game experience set in a cemetery where Facebook profiles have been memorialized by the deceased’s loved ones. The artwork prompts us to contemplate the impact of our immaterial selves on our physical lives, and the consequences of prioritizing our online personalities. Must we consider the fate of our digital counterparts when we die? Do they exist indefinitely, or do they perish as well?

Visitors interact differently on-site or on the internet, enabling a multilayered engagement

Ahmed Jamal (EGY) & Simon Weckert (DE)

Mirror Me!

Interactive VR installation
Galerija Tir Mostovna

Reflections are formed in our minds and shape our ideas about who we are. Mirror Me! is an attempt to answer, based on different perceptions, the question: Who am I?

As viewers approach the installation, they are captivated by the reflective surface, which resembles a mirror. But unlike a conventional mirror, the closer one gets, the less they see of themselves and the more they see of their surroundings. This intriguing phenomenon produces a visual shift that challenges our usual conceptions of self-identity and compels us to think about the interconnectedness between ourselves and the world.

What is the nature of self-reflection and how does it shape our perception of personal identity?

Mirror Me! encourages viewers to look beyond the obvious and delve deeper into the intricate connections that shape our identity. Mirror Me! becomes a metaphor for the journey of self-discovery, as we recognize that our identity is not isolated but intricately intertwined with our surroundings.

Danielius Marius Šermukšnis (LT)

Data Trail Diary

Installation
Galerija Tir Mostovna

The artwork explores the field and dilemmas of today’s mass surveillance, which, formerly limited and more targeted by its physical, visible presence, is now being replaced by a relentless »digital ghost«, ever-present in all layers of our lives, watching our every step from behind. These surveillance systems are becoming increasingly efficient and prolific as technology progresses, making one feel progressively disconnected, out of place, and inexplicably observed in today’s world.

The artist tries to combat this situation by employing handwriting as a medium of data storage which in the present day is largely rendered obsolete by the rise of the »new« digital world. The camera located in front of the artwork captures live video footage, which is then interpreted by the object detection algorithm and detected objects are written down on a moving sheet of paper. Using a handwritten font that takes time to be written, with pauses between each entry, intentionally slows down what was once a highly efficient process. It imbues it with the inefficiency reminiscent of human involvement.

Data Trail Diary – an ambiguous, but at the same time very unique and personal work that aims to bring back the long-lost familiarity and physical presence of surveillance authority.

Alessandro Lupi (IT)

Border reflection

External Installation
Carinarnica

The “rational dotted line” symbolising a border on a map is a drawing made with a pencil that traces the destinies of entire populations. This work reflects and plays with space, while questioning and challenging our traditional understanding of borders and identity. The mirrors are mounted along the border line for some 50 metres at a height of 4 metres and become kinetic through the wind reflecting the space, the sky, and all the surrounding space; depending on the point of view, they sometimes blend in and disappear, sometimes shimmering with reflections.

Aesthetically, it is perceived as something fragile and ephemeral, reflecting on the collective identity of the region and how this division is an element in the construction of identities themselves, which actually mirror and recognise each other precisely because of the differences.

At a time when human activity has greatly blurred the boundaries between nations, this installation reflects the complexity of borders as they exist in our collective consciousness. Borders have evolved beyond geographical boundaries; they represent the convergence of cultures, they become something like seams and foster the exchange of ideas and shared experiences between people living on either side.

The mirrors, in their subtle movement, seem to symbolise the fragility of these divisions in the face of our interconnected world.

Alessandro Lupi graduated from the Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti in Genoa in 2000. He lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Alessandro Lupi’s research has developed over the years by intensely experimenting on matter, light, and shadow. Each work is an invention and investigates in a different manner the way we perceive reality, each time trying to start from space and dialoguing with it. His collaborations with scientists, physicists, philosophers, and sociologists permeate his research in an attempt to create real perceptual, poetic, and immersive experiments in which the public can participate, relate, and reflect. His works have been exhibited in galleries, museums, and public spaces. What his objects, sculptures, and large installations have in common is the possibility of stimulating the imagination, allowing interaction, using a poetics that starts with archetypal elements, all while seeking to explore unknown lands.

Ana Pečar (SI)

Spell against Snake Bite

Interactive installation
Carinarnica

Sound: Izpod korenin
Guest: Peter Mignozzi

The interactive installation Spell against Snake Bite is a rhythmic video projection of strong light contrasts which works like a spell in repetitive rhythms, imitating the shimmering scales of a snake in motion. The sound is a ritual language, somewhere between chanting and speech – a monotonous, ritualistic, repetitive chant. The installation also addresses the broken bond and interdependence between man and nature in a documentary manner, through poetic and narrative forms and objects. The elusive, intractable snake symbolically represents life itself, without beginning or end: from darkness to light and back to darkness. Since in ancient stories the snake rules the waters, storms, and tempests, a spell against its bite is a symbolic plea that bows respectfully to the power of the world and understands that in the present networks considerably more is being consumed than is possible in a balanced relationship. Even if intertwined with contemporary life and challenges, the installation suggests the possibility of ways to get out from behind these networks.

The work of Ana Pečar is based on video images of intangible, sensitive, and yet expressive scenes of nature. Through expressive media, including intermedia installations, spatial intervention, and photography, the artist creates contemplative spaces that calm the impulses of the external dynamic world. She draws inspiration from a variety of sources, from long visual scenes by Tarkovsky or Kurosawa, to the richness of indigenous ways of life. She delves into the power of serenity. She explores the heritage preserved in remote parts of the world through oral traditions and the cycles governing the elements, nature, animals, plants, and humans, relativizing the unconditional value system in which we find ourselves.

Works by Ana Pečar can be found in the collections of the Maribor Art Gallery and the Božidar Jakac Gallery in Kostanjevica na Krki. She has participated in numerous national and international exhibitions and festivals.

School of Arts, University of Nova Gorica

jaz ∞ mi | I ∞ us

Akademija umetnosti Univerze v Novi Gorici

Authors and works:
Luka Carlevaris (SI): Mikropotreba po hitrosti | Micro Need for Speed
Miha Godec (SI): Palingenesis, vodni filter 0.1 | Water Filter 0.1
Anastasija Kojić (SRB), Ana Logar (SI): 5476
Anastasija Kojić (SRB): Sivi prostori | Grayspaces
Tamara Kostrevc(SRB), Lazar Mihajlović (SRB): Smetenje & odmevajoče sence | Littering & Echoing Shadows
Tamara Taskova (NMK/SI): Fragmenti cikla | Cycle Fragments

The works were created in the research workshops Futurama, Time and Space in the Moving Image, and The Power of a Woman’s Blood, under the mentorship of Roberta Šebjanič, Jasna Hribernik, and Rene Rusjan. The Academy of Arts also presented the exhibition I ∞ we at the Ars Electronica 2023 festival in Linz.

Rene Rusjan, curator, Rok Govednik, producer and coordinator, Boštjan Potokar, responsible person, Urša Bonelli, technical support.

Reflection on yourself and us in the world. With great attention to the community, our present and the common future, but through the individual stories that the students intertwine with each other, when they search for their role in the world, sometimes with fear, but empowered in research through mutual cooperation.

The presented works respond to the theme of Ars Electronica 2023 »Who Owns the Truth?«, with views on the changed attitude towards the ownership of the planet, nature, people, ideas, and technology. They explore social and environmental topics, artificial intelligence, a future without people, and intimate reflections on identities, gender, strength, and individual fragility.

The exhibition invites visitors to a sound-light landscape that whispers about a distant future time of the Earth, inhabited by new cultures – fungi. They grow from scientific books, from an encyclopaedia of physics. It also focuses on our NOW, where we feel the discomfort of the individual before the world and the future, and emphasizes trust in the community of all beings. Part of the exhibition invites us into an intimate space in the middle of the public, into a boudoir with plants and a multitude of cyclical tempos, which are continuously generated by an installation of animated video moments.

About the authors

Luka Carlevaris, študent prvega letnika magistrskega programa, fotografija | first-year master’s degree student, photography
Miha Godec, absolvent magistrskega programa, sodobne umetniške prakse, medtem že zelo dejaven in uspešen samostojni avtor | final-year master’s degree student, contemporary art practice and already a very active and successful freelance author
Anastasija Kojić, študentka drugega letnika magistrskega programa, sodobne umetniške prakse | second-year master’s degree student, contemporary art practices
Tamara Kostrevc, študentka drugega letnika magistrskega programa, sodobne umetniške prakse | second-year master’s degree student, contemporary artistic practices
Ana Logar, študentka tretjega letnika dodiplomskega programa, videofilm | third-year bachelor’s degree student, video film
Lazar Mihajlović, študent drugega letnika magistrskega programa, novi mediji | second-year master’s degree student, new media
Tamara Taskova, študentka tretjega letnika dodiplomskega programa, animacija | third-year bachelor’s degree student, animation

Tanja Vujinović (SI)

AvantGarden

Ambient video installation
Galerija Agorè, Gorica (IT)

AvantGarden worlds are Tanja Vujinovic’s virtual environments filled with her digital sculptures called Proto-machines. They are main actors in the networks of the AvantGarden permaculture. Through following their paths and proto-machine connections, the variable atmospheric conditions they control, underground and aerial hotspots and diverse water flows and fountains, we gain insight into the complex poetic and vibrant playgrounds these biomimetic digital artifacts inhabit.

Alien beings whose growth we initiated distant ages ago have achieved their independence, including the possibilities of self reproduction and regulation of ecosystems. They are both familiar and foreign, inviting and threatening, seducing and sublime. Reminiscent of ancient sculptures imbued with multiple functions as psychological, mythological and religious actors and regulators of society, so do these soft and hard biomimetic agents offer a safe, ongoing future and serve as a curious sanctuary from ordinary life, a playful arena for rethinking society.

In 1999, Tanja Vujinović graduated from the painting department of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, was a guest student at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, and in 2010 received her Ph.D. in Philosophy and Theory of Visual Culture from the Faculty of Humanities, University of Primorska, Koper.
Tanja Vujinovic’s multidisciplinary art practice involves the creation of virtual reality art installations, events, 3D compositions, ambient electronica and Techno tracks. Living in Ljubljana, and working internationally since 1997, Tanja creates art projects that have been presented to thousands of people around the world. Optimism, positive energy, equal rights to healthy living environments, and freedom of expression are some of the core values her art projects are built upon, while being inspired by science, the early rave movement, and the impact of technology on humankind.
Her latest cycle of new media artworks called AvantGarden is all about nature and technology, exploring a variety of subjects like the fountain of youth or garden of Eden, emergence of synthetic materials or relationships in social VR spaces, and rave culture. Finding inspiration in words of her friends or in popular culture, she is also inspired by science - the science of nanostructured materials, plasma-treated water, fusion energy generation, or so-called Analog Field Sites located on Earth but made for space exploration tests. Her transcendental installations make us feel good, and in tune with our environment, while also inspiring us to think about ourselves, artificial intelligence, and non-human agents in the world. Her Proto-machine sculptures that inhabit AvantGarden are vehicles of imagination. They are progressive, futuristic, multi-functional machines.

Since 1997 her works have been exhibited at numerous galleries and museums and at festivals. Over the past twenty years, she has received numerous scholarships and project support funding.

https://www.tanjav.art/

LECTURE, PRESENTATIONS, PERFORMANCES

Gregor Spagnolo (SI)

Network security

Lecture
Xcenter

Just as an attacker tries to exploit every vulnerability in a web application, online fraudsters fine-tune their bait and exploit human vulnerabilities. In the world of information security, it is precisely the inherently human characteristics that make us so vulnerable. We are only aware of cyber threats when we experience a cyberattack, whether privately or within a business. The human component is the Achilles heel, so it is difficult to find a universal recipe to fully protect ourselves from risks and threats. Knowing which card attackers will play is already an important step. This lecture on network security is therefore designed to refresh your knowledge and raise awareness of key aspects of security in modern digital environments. At a time when digital connectivity is an indispensable part of our daily lives, understanding security risks and measures to protect data and networks is of paramount importance.

Gregor Spagnolo is the owner of SSRD Ltd, a company focusing on secure life cycles and software developer training. He is a Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) and Certified Application Security Expert (CASE) with over ten years of experience and expertise in application design, implementation, and security. His security work includes security audits, penetration testing, source code analysis, secure programming, and security incident data mining. He is vice-chairman and ICT coordinator of the Cyber Security Department at the Association for Informatics and Telecommunications, which is a part of the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a cybersecurity consultant for the national Computer Emergency Response Team, and a member of the board of directors of BSides Ljubljana, the largest cybersecurity conference in Slovenia. His key role in this project will be to contribute real-world scenarios, examples of best practices, and cybersecurity knowledge from both the private and public sectors. He will be able to transfer knowledge and experience from the project to these sectors and vice versa, thanks to his access to both private and public institutions.

Kim Brian Dudek (DE)

Presentation of the Pochen multimedia festival – twin city Chemnitz (DE)

Presentation
Xcenter

The word pochen has many meanings in German. There is the knocking when one taps rhythmically against a surface. We insist unwaveringly on our ideals. If we think of something that inspires us, our heart thumps. We have a throbbing headache when we worry. And in the mines in the Erzgebirge, miners pounded the ore for decades.

In addition to all this, Pochen is also the name of a festival for multimedia art and its cultural mediation in Chemnitz. It is a space for critical and collaborative engagement with the upheavals affecting our society. Pochen is listening, feeling, seeing, and participating.

Kim Brian Dudek has been with Spinnerei e.V. since September 2021. Having moved from Halle (Saale) to Chemnitz to be where things are happening, he previously worked at the media art association Werkleitz Gesellschaft e.V. (2019–2021). After studying political science, philosophy, and geography, he gained a great deal of experience in all areas of cultural work, including curation, production, and venue development – and now Pochen. After two intensive years, he is now leading the project with Benjamin Gruner.

Fabrizio Lamocha (E)

Interface Cultures presents: Resonating Selves

Presentation
Xcenter

In an era where truth is increasingly elusive and subjective, students from the Interface Cultures master’s degree programme of the University of Arts Linz present Resonating Selves, a captivating exploration of how our identities resonate and interact with the world around us. Exploring formats ranging from interactive installations to immersive experiences, these artworks represent contemporary tensions and the critical relationship between our personal truths and the creation of new collective narratives.

Fabricio Lamoncha is an artist, designer, and researcher from Spain, currently based in Austria. His practices explore the entanglements of media ecology and bioethics. Since 2018, he has been a PhD researcher at the Kunstuniversität Linz. He is also a member of the Art|Sci Center at UCLA (Los Angeles) and a co-founder and organizer of the Leonardo Laser Talks Linz. His work has been exhibited internationally and awarded the Art and Artificial Life International Award Vida14.

https://postbiointernet.com/

Odyssey

Mobile planetarium
Rotunda Slovenskega narodnega gledališča Nova Gorica

The planetarium gives festivalgoers an opportunity to experience a whole new dimension of space exploration. The mobile planetarium’s educators will take participants on an incredible journey through the starry skies. They will learn about nebulae and galaxies the size of the universe, worlds that could harbour new life, the first space travellers, the biggest stars in the sky, and whether the sun always rises in the east. They will be able to fully simulate the movement of celestial bodies in the past, present, and future, see the sky above most of the planets and their moons in our solar system, experience planetary transits, simulate solar and lunar eclipses, and learn more about other wonders of the universe. Aside from that, they will learn amazing information about the space that surrounds us.

Visitors should prepare for a truly unique experience at the planetarium – watching films in a dome projection with a 540° viewing angle. Everyone will have the feeling of being a star among the stars.

Simone Bosco (IT)

REbirth

Performance
Kulturni dom Nova Gorica

REbirth is an audiovisual live show in which images react in real time to sound, shaping an incredibly emotional experience. »Nothing is destroyed, everything is transformed,« inspires the artist, who explores the infinite life spiral of every living being: a process of regeneration that gives new life and is an invitation to sustainability and personal renewal.

REbirth explores a territory straddling different sound and visual languages in a synaesthetic process between them. Complex textures, sharp melodies, evolutionary rhythms, sculpted sounds merging with visuals captivate the audience, taking them on a journey through the beauty and complexity of our universe, where everything is interconnected.

Performance is dedicated to art and technology lovers, music enthusiasts, and anyone who wishes to immerse themselves in a unique sensory experience that provides moments of pure wonder and inspiration.

Simone Bosco is an Italian composer, producer, sound designer, and musician. He has a complex personal style, developed through an artistic journey that has touched upon different fields of expression. The combination of electronic and acoustic components has led him to enrich his sound horizon, which is characterized by research and experimentation.

From 2000 to 2022 he released 15 recorded works (4 of which were voted among the 10 best European albums of the year). He has written music for 18 dramas and 5 short films. He represented Italy at the International Biennial in Sarajevo in 2001, and in 2002 he won the Movin’ Up award from the Italian Ministry of Culture. In 2006, Simone Bosco played with and conducted 80 percussionists at the opening ceremony of the 20^th Olympic Games in Turin on mondovision. In 2011, he founded the duo OZMOTIC, the only Italian group published by the iconic London label Touch. He has collaborated with internationally renowned artists and has performed concerts at prestigious theatres and festivals in over 20 countries.

Vahid Qaderi (IR) & Razieh Kooshki (IR)

Synesthetic

AV performance
Galerija Tir Mostovna

Synesthetic is an AV performance that combines electronic music with interactive abstract images. It is an artistic exploration of the relationship between auditory and visual stimuli that invites the audience to explore a sensory journey through the fusion of sound and images.

Zavod EN-KNAP (SI)

Stage360

Presentation
Kulturni dom Nova Gorica

Stage360 is a new type of performing art in a virtual environment. The authors believe in the potential of an artistic genre that represents a contact between the past and the future, in a unique way redirecting the audience’s view from the centre of the stage, thus establishing a whole new perspective in the performing arts. The initiative does not suggest that the classical audience perspective of the performing form should be replaced; instead, it establishes a parallel perspective, a potential and a simulacrum of theatre in new environments and in extended, off-stage circumstances. Without a dramaturgical frame, the direction of the gaze becomes the choice of the individual spectator, and the close proximity of the performers becomes a privilege that had not been there before. In the 2021 and 2022 seasons, this was the medium used in the staging of several domestic productions specifically designed for 360° filming, and this season an original production by the EN-KNAP Group entitled Stamped premiered in the same medium. Watching the show in virtual reality has opened up the possibility of composite events that include a VR experience of the show and reflections on the show with the creators and a moderator – this kind of hybrid format has become the basis for the Stage360-branded performance event. At the interface with technology, the stage has the potential to overcome the claim that in its reality we are »alone together« or »together alone«. Through immersion and participation, the audience is transformed into a congregation and socializing into social engagement.

The dance group En-Knap was founded in 1993 by Iztok Kovač under the auspices of the Klapstuk Festival in Leuven, Belgium, and a year later it was legitimized in Ljubljana as the production house EN-KNAP. This internationally renowned production house has established its own aesthetic in the European space and attracted an international network of co-producers. The EN-KNAP programme has been financially supported since its founding by the Slovenian Ministry of Culture and the Municipality of Ljubljana’s Department of Culture. Since 2009, it has been managed by the Španski Borci Cultural Centre in Ljubljana’s Moste district, which is home to the first permanent contemporary dance ensemble in the country, the EN-KNAP Group.

EDUCATIONAL WORKSHOPS

Drones Are Among Us, Let’s Get to Know Them Better

Workshop on flying drons
Xcenter

Led by: Ptuj Secondary School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, mentor: Franc Vrbanič; student assistants: Jaka Antolič, Alex Kaučevič, Jaka Janžekovič and Žan Emeršič

The workshop provides a brief history of the human desire to exceed our limitations, something that humanity has been doing through the development of technology. The focus is on technology born out of the wish to join the birds in the sky and take flight, in particular, drones – unmanned aerial vehicles. Participants will learn that buying and flying a drone is more than just fun, it is also a responsibility. The workshop will highlight the owner’s responsibility to plan a safe flight, respect privacy, and abide by the regulations governing drones. Only a responsible drone owner is a guarantee that flying such devices will be safe. Participants will use the Scratch programming language to programme a Tello DJI drone, which is primarily designed for indoor flying. They will learn how to buy a drone, safely work with it, and write programmes. This is a hands-on workshop providing a unique experience for participants.

Create your own PIXXELPOINT portrait

3D printing and photography workshop for kids aged 8-14
Xcenter

Led by: Matej Vidmar

Did you know that you can bring your creativity into the three-dimensional world? In this workshop, visitors will explore the wonderful and magical world of 3D printing and create their own unique PIXXELPOINT portraits.

Using the latest technology, children will turn artistic ideas into reality. They will learn how to create a 3D model of their face or any other object. They will then use a 3D printer to turn these models into real, tangible works of art. In this workshop, they will learn the basics of 3D modelling and 3D printing, and delve deep into the creative process.

Photographer Matej Vidmar graduated in photography from the Srečko Kosovel College in Sežana and works in photography and the development of creative practices. His photographs have been published in national and international publications (Outsider, Delo, Primorske Novice, Primorski Dnevnik, etc.) and regional and national cultural websites. For the Goriška Museum, he has produced photographs for a monograph of the painter Slavko Furlan. He was the official photographer and documented all events of the Nova Gorica Cultural Centre from 2012 to 2020.

Recently, he has been exploring new ways of connecting photography with production processes such as 3D printing and woodworking with a laser cutter. For Xcenter Nova Gorica, he has developed and produced new games in wood and plastic. He has combined his photographic experience with toy design and production. He passes on his knowledge to those eager for new experiences at the Xcenter in Nova Gorica.

Capsules

Lighting Guerrilla (light workshop for students)
Xcenter

Led by: Matej Bizovičar

Capsules is a light workshop for exploring the creative power of light. Each participant will create their own unique light box – a capsule that draws inspiration from unusual and perhaps alien life forms. This theme is indirectly linked to the concept of the nativity scene, but will be approached through the unique world of light. The workshop will use special UV paints and UV lights to make participants’ capsules even more fascinating and mysterious. It will take place over three days, with at least eight hours dedicated to creativity each day. The mentors will adapt to the schedule of the participants in order to ensure that the workshop runs at the best possible pace. The light workshop will be an extraordinary creative journey where new dimensions of creativity will be discovered through light. The capsules will be true works of art that will illuminate the imagination and inspire with their creations. Participants’ will discover light in a whole new way.

Matej Bizovičar attended the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana from 1991 to 1995, studying painting under professor Gustav Gnamuš. Since 1993 he has been working as a versatile artist at the Metelkova Autonomous Cultural Centre in Ljubljana. He works with painting, sculpture, and spatial installations. In recent years, he has also made a name for himself as the author of numerous light installations in public spaces.

Lego robotics for kids

Workshop for children aged 6 to 15
Xcenter

http://maliustvarjalci.si/

Children will get to know the basics of robotics and programming with the help of the ever-popular LEGO bricks. Creative LEGO lessons will feature interesting plans, instructive projects, and awesome ideas. Participants will create LEGO robots, learn a lot about robotics and programming, play around a bit, and have an amazing time.

A mentor will work with each participant individually and assign them projects suitable to their age. Participants will use computers, tablets and the LEGO WeDo and Mindstorms educational packages. The workshops are for kids without prior knowledge of robotics and programming as well as those who have participated in our workshops and have some knowledge of robotics and programming. There are endless possibilities to combine bricks and programming and we will definitely not run out of ideas.

Are you itching to learn? Join us for the workshops and get to know dancing, singing, and walking LEGO robots.

The company Mali ustvarjalci has been getting children, teachers, and parents excited about robotics and programming since 2015. Focusing on south-eastern Slovenia and occasionally venturing into other parts of the country, it organises a variety of workshops for primary and secondary school students, youths, teachers, and other adults. Mali ustvarjalci workshops prepare participants for independent work with the educational packages LEGO WeDo 2.0 and LEGO Mindstorms. They also organise STEM days and extracurricular programmes for schools.

Pixxel Musician

Electronic music workshop for kids 12+
Xcenter

Led by: Andrej Kobal

In this workshop, participants will learn about various kinds of electronic music using a computer, synthesizers, a mixing console, a DJ mixer, MIDI controllers, etc. Children will also perform music on devices that they know well such as smartphones and tablets. All devices will be provided at the workshop.

They will learn about a wide variety of apps for creating electronic music and, along the way, pick up a lot of music theory in a fun and engaging way. They will also learn about different techniques for creating electronic music, such as sampling, sound synthesis, sound transformation and effects, and many others. Participants will interact with each other and, with the help of different instruments, they will be involved in the very process of creating electronic music.

Andrej Kobal is a Slovenian composer and sound designer. In 2010 he became a certified electronic music producer at the SAE International Institute and in 2013 he successfully completed an electronic music masterclass with professor Roberto Girolino at the Vivaldi Institute in Monfalcone, Italy. Kobal’s musical activities are very broad, ranging from original compositions sound design and composition for film music and theatre, to the design of sound installations and custom-made electronic virtual instruments. For sound design, he uses the Max MSP music software environment to build his own virtual instruments, creating unique sounds. He has also created a virtual instrument for granular sound synthesis, GranuRise, in the Max MSP software environment, which has won him significant international acclaim. His concerts, lectures, and sound installations have been featured at many major concerts, festivals, and institutions both at home and abroad.

Freeze-Drying – Unleash Your Creativity with Food

Xcenter
Led by: Filip Tomažič & Eszter Szentirmai, Founders of Lioflor

Explore the ancient yet trending world of freeze-drying! From the Andes’ historical food preservation to NASA’s space cuisine, this workshop delves into the rich past and modern uses of freeze-drying. We’ll show how a freeze-dryer works: freezing, low-pressure magic, and vapour collection. In 1-2 days, you get moisture-free, neutral-tasting food. But it’s not just science, it’s about taste! Enjoy freeze-dried fruits, veggies, and even ice cream. Discover nutrition preservation and waste reduction. Challenges like energy use are tackled with solar power. Expect an interactive, foodie LEGO-style activity. Craft unique culinary delights: ice cream-topped cookies, edible flower brownies, and more. Leave with your creations and newfound knowledge. Join us in a world of edible art – limitless imagination, surprising, healthy, natural, colourful, and delicious results.

Filip Tomažič and Eszter Szentirmai are the founders of Lioflor and a couple living in Solkan, Primorska. They met in 2016 in Uganda, in a village called Bubugo, and later travelled the world: they worked in California, backpacked Latin America and Asia, completed a yoga teacher training course in India, and before moving back to Europe they spent the last four years in Australia, in the rainforest, where they had a baby girl. They have been living in Nova Gorica for one year and started a freeze-dried flower business. The paperwork was officially arranged only a few months ago, but they already have customers from all over the world, but mostly Americans are buying the petite Slovenian flowers. They also sell to Meghan Markle’s wedding-cake baker and Ana Roš.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

OTHER PARTICIPANTS