Focus Archives • Digicult | Digital Art, Design and Culture

VR/AR: State of the Art, a research repository on Digicult

From this week on, Digicult will host VR/AR: State of the Art, a research repository curated by Eleonora Stacchiotti. In partnership with the University of Utrecht, this project is part of Eleonora’s research internship at Digicult. The project wants to investigate the current uses and perception of Augmented and Virtual Reality in the art world.... READ MORE...

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#ArtonInstagram

Lucrezia Di Canio

Comparing the idea of owning an artwork to one of posting it is unrealistic, but the reason why we do both and the consequence of both actions to some extent can be more similar than we think. On an artistic level, one also commodifies and consumes the artwork in both scenarios. Just as art objects sold at auctions become commodities because they are treated as goods... READ MORE...

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The Exoticization and Commodification of the Black Body

Sara Merzenich

From being sold as a commodity to being used to sell commodities, the exploitation of the Black body has been the backbone of the creation of Western civilisation. Although this exploitation is painfully obvious to recognize in some instances – i.e. the Transatlantic slave trade – in other instances it is less obvious and well masked under the pretext... READ MORE...

ActivismArticles

The retaliation of art: Memestetica by Valentina Tanni

Fabiola Fiocco

"Memestetica, il settembre eterno dell’arte" written by Valentina Tanni and published on July 2020 by NERO Editions, succeeds in a quite tricky operation, that is to combine in a single physical and theoretical space a series of phenomena and subcultures that have been inadequately and partiality recounted for years.... READ MORE...

Books

Data Meditations: New rituals for new possible worlds

Daniele Bucci

A lot has happened in 2020. In the pandemic world of covid19, the small HER research center, started by artists / hacktivists / researchers Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico, is changing its skin to become HER: She Loves Data: a new type of organization that interprets data as existential phenomena and uses art and design to reposition the results of research and innovation in the middle of society.... READ MORE...

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Fictive Appearance: all the inflections of an image

Mario Margani

Starting from an installation view shot, the visual dialogue between Yotaro Niwa and Yuto Takamuro unfold in an unexpected way that led to the new publication Fictive Appearance, and a new installation at einBuch.Haus in Berlin, where the publication has been launched in January 2020, during the Vorpsiel program of the Transmediale.... READ MORE...

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The second chapter of INBTWN “In Between” – A programme curated by Claudia D’Alonzo

Claudia D'Alonzo

XL was and will be the new format of Centrale Fies, originally conceived for the 40th anniversary of Drodesera and the 20th of Fies. Today it finds a new correlation in the analysis of an "oversize" that breaks the summer one shot , weaving together all the annual events of Centrale Fies.... READ MORE...

ArtArticles

The Speculative Design of Immaculate Motherhood

Patricia de Vries

In the next five years, the artificial womb will become a medical reality. Ectogenesis, outside-the-womb gestation, is increasingly viable for human embryos. Will it lead to a feminist utopia, or is it the newest manifestation of an age-old male fantasy? This question has occupied the minds of feminists, science-fiction writers, artists and scientists for decades. Article by Patricia de Vries... READ MORE...

ArticlesDesign

Friction Atlas. A radical topography of public space

Fabiola Fiocco

With the idea of starting a reflection on the use of public space - which is now increasingly regulated, limited and reduced - since 2014 Paolo Patelli and Giuditta Vendrame, through the project "Friction Atlas" collect, classify and make visible all the laws, rules and devices that regulate the way people move, meet, and gather in public space. Article by Fabiola Fiocco... READ MORE...

ArticlesDesign

Machine and Mind, Rethinking Affect

Claire Burke

We live in a world where technologies are increasingly blurring the boundaries of affect, between man and machine. As technology becomes more integrated into our lives, will we become more integrated into technology? Article by Claire Burke... READ MORE...

ArticlesWeb

Zombies can vote too: Sentience in memesis

Pierre Chaumont

The image of the digital zombie, that being absorbed by its phone who barely functions in public and is almost always rescued by another bystander has become a contemporary caricature of technology, and yet most of us do not remember the last three things we’ve reacted to. Article by Pierre Chaumont.... READ MORE...

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Future of Classroom: On Bringing Light and Information into Buildings (or Doing Away With Buildings Altogether)

Selena Savic

Since at least a decade we have access to technologies that enable us to remotely perform the majority of tasks related to learning. Do we still need physical space for learning?... READ MORE...

ArticlesDesign

Memesis: community and self-definition in the age of memes

Pierre Chaumont

Pierre Chaumont examines Memes, visual jokes that are made of an image of pop culture on which is added a humoristic text, and "Memesis", the process of a community creating itself through the spreading of its culture.... READ MORE...

ArticlesWeb

Digital Unpleasant Design: Uncomfortable Websites and Demanding Services

Selena Savic

The way we navigate the internet is increasingly processed and shaped by algorithms. Selena Savic will look into the design of algorithms that we interact with on a day-to-day basis, from online purchases to social networks or surveillance systems.... READ MORE...

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Tagging Aesthetics #0: a cultural critique of categorization in the age of social media

Nicola Bozzi

Nicola Bozzi is interested in the double-edged nature of stereotypes and how categorization is a key part of the way we organize our online self.... READ MORE...

ArtWeb

The dark mirror. Interview with Clément Lambelet.

Bianca Cavuti

Never more than today human beings live in symbiosis with technologies that he created himself. Today as in the past, technologies are accurate mirrors of their societies, of human desires, fears and needs. Bianca Cavuti discusses these topics with Clément Lambelet, who handles issues about the relationship between society and technology, control ideologies and Artificial Intelligence.... READ MORE...

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Taking the aurora into a reservoir – A space to meditate on water

Kirsten Hawkins

Kirsten Hawkins shares her experience of visiting Aurora, a site-specific installation by Leeds-based ensemble Invisible Flock with international collaborators with the intention of opening up art to the city of Liverpool, and open hearts to the magic of something we take for granted daily.... READ MORE...

ArticlesScience

The Numerical Self: a step inside Flora Miranda future fashion

Antonia Seierl

Self-optimisation and self-tracking have been around for quite a while; as Deborah Lupton noticed, the “Quantified Self Movement” is not only as a practice of self-improvement, but also an extension of memory in computerised form. Flora Miranda translates data and the whole idea of an immaterial body into 3D printed garments, offering a step inside the future through fashion and addressing the idea of becoming eternal online.... READ MORE...

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