New technologies open up a horizon extending in directions that are imaginable but not yet fully predictable. This complicates the assessment of their potential impact and the long-term effects they may have on both the dignity of individuals and the common good. — MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS

We never, or at least very rarely, use the term dignity when we talk about technology. But there has been a movement for a while that speaks about care, and responsibility, and fairness of both how technologies are designed, made, and deployed.

Just Tech

New Inc

Agog Institute

This movement has been for many a niche segment at the outskirts of …

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For those who are not art historians, collections are primarily repositories of craftsmanship and taste. Their timeless and silent power over various audiences is something we should not underestimate.

Why would museum collections represent special value for the next generation?

Inside V&A East Storehouse, A Radical Rethink of What a Museum Can Be

I won’t use the arguments you already know:

- the trust we see in social surveys (According to a 2021 survey of 1,200 Americans, both museum-goers and non-visitors described museums as the first and second-most trusted source of information in U.S. society, respectively)

- the ongoing work being done by museum leaders to transform museums from hermetic dungeons into welcoming third spaces that offer acceptance, inclusion, and seamless learning (‘Young…

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Both recently started calling for a consumer boycott of Chat GPT.

Bregman is arguing for consumer action on moral grounds: OpenAI’s support for MAGA, its involvement in the Minnesota killings, and its recent deal with the Pentagon allowing for autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance. Anthropic’s Dario Amodei declined these conditions, resulting in a massive rise in Claude’s popularity and an uninstall rate increase of approximately 295 percent among ChatGPT users. 900 former and current OpenAI and Google employees signed a petition opposing the use of their companies’ technology for weapons capable of killing without human oversight and for mass s…

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Fall 2004 marked a turning point in my career: while producing a major international theatre festival in my home country with Robert Lepage, Heiner Goebbels, and The Wooster Group, I also began my formal studies in theatre directing.

After a couple of years studying art history and philosophy, this was the moment I decided to move from theory into practice, choosing a path as a practitioner in the arts. Two decades and four industries later, I see one main thing that hasn’t changed since.

Poland: The long and winding road

I was born and raised in the 80s in post-communist Poland, which was a peculiar time in history: charged with despair and hope in equal measure, at least for my mixed-heritage family, which had suffered in many ways from the regime that took over the eastern part of the continent after the war – another major blow for my ancestors, both those who perished and those who remained.

Seeing a systemic…

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There’s also plenty to see and experience—from the massively successful Venice Biennale curated by Carlo Ratti to art fairs, exhibitions, and festivals that embrace the immersive shift and present experimental digital works.

I'm especially sad to miss Tribeca this year, which features a profound, American-focused selection curated in partnership with Onassis ONX and sponsored by Agog. I also wish I could clone myself to visit the reimagined VRHAM Biennale by Ulrich Schrauth and the omni talented Lilian Hess, author of Duchampiana (my favourite VR experience of the past season). Alas! Here’s what’s coming up next:

• Big Thing by Immersive Arts, is the pilot edition of a multidisciplinary event led by the UWE Bristol team and curated by the ever-inspiring minds at Crossover Labs. I’m very excited to reunite with the UK community and see what Tom & co have been working on following the first round of artist grants distributed through the groundbreaking Immersive Arts program. You can register and join some of the inspirational sessions taking place June 9-11

• Straight from Manchester, England England, I’m headed to Sónar+D, where I’ll be sitting on an all-star panel, How to Future the Creative Industries, alongside Boris Magrini (LAS Art Foundation), Clara Montero (Tabakalera), Fabien Siouffi (Octobre Numérique Festival), Jurij Krpan (Kapelica Gallery), Heracles Papatheodorou (Onassis Foundation), Luís Fernandes (gnration), Salome Asega (New Museum), Tamar Clarke-Brown (Serpentine Galleries), Vicente Matallana (New Art Foundation), and Zaiba Jabbar (HERVISIONS)

  I can’t wait to explore this year’s eclectic program focused on digital art and AI—especially since I’ll be heading to MUTEK shortly after, which pairs perfectly for anyone looking to dive deeper in convos about independent innovation in music and art.

  I’m especially excited to reconnect with so many friends coming to Barcelona, including some of my favorite female voices in the space: Libby Heaney, Salome Asega, and May Abdalla.

• In the final part of June, Art Basel Basel is a perfect opportunity to discover a new exhibition at Fondation Beyeler called Little Room by Jordan Wolfson. Somehow, as I'm counting days to see it, I can't stop thinking about the acclaimed mixed media installation by Ayoung Kim at the Hamburger Bahnhof, and especially one of the exhibits called Ghost Dancers, where the artist integrated mini screens inside motorbike helmets suspended in the air using bundles of black cables—bringing to mind both Alien and Medusa, as well as a creepy sensation of a digital body turned inside out. A haunting and profound moment.

Same weekend—I wish I could be there — Le Pavillon by KIKK Galaxy in Namur is opening the second chapter of our show Other Worlds Are Possible, with seven new video and VR installations.

Some works reach for a truly cosmic scale to explore inner landscapes—both physical and spiritual—like Evolver, a meditative, multisensory take on the breathing body guided by the voice of Cate Blanchett (first-ever public presentation of the single-user version of the VR experience by MARSHMALLOW LASER FEAST), or The Great Filter, a monumental video installation by the stunning emerging Taiwanese artist Wen-Yee Hsieh (Wen-Yee adapted our original NYC infinity room edition to a five-by-three-meter single channel video installation).

Others confront us with the ongoing violence of the real world, such as Traveling While Black, a documentary dive into American racial memory by the legendary Canadian studio Felix & Paul Studios (I still consider it the best documentary made in virtual reality), or Over the Rainbow, a sombre and playful, David Lynchian reflection on desire and the illusion of control by Craig Quintero and his ensemble at the Riverbed Theatre Company in Taipei.

If you still haven’t been to Namur, this summer is your chance to see what we’ve built (more on this here)

Early July is going to be dedicated to the cross-section of performing arts and immersive tech, where during the Avignon theatre festival I’ll be representing the Jury for Prix SNSV—a fantastic program led by Dark Euphoria, thanks to which I’ve already discovered brilliant new works by directors and choreographers integrating various forms of technological intervention into their practice.

Dark Euphoria (Marie Point Mathieu Rozières William Board) is a well-known expert in this area. From their HQ in the south of France, and through collaborations with various theatre organizations as well as the Festival d’Avignon, they are paving the way for an in-depth conversation on the future of augmented performance (check out their recent show No Reality Now by Charles Ayats).

I’m also hopping over to Arles after Avignon to shed a few happy tears while looking at E.A.T at Luma like I'm 20 again, and celebrate the 15th anniversary of Fotografiska.

Below’s a quick note on what I’m bringing to some of those dialogues, with additional reads linked in the text. Hope to see you at one of the stops ❤️

The Great Shift

The promise of the technology that we use daily is always the same — to bring people together. Every big tech company says that and introduces design elements that imitate human connection. The reality of technology that we use daily is that it often creates an illusion or a facsimile of togetherness in order to sustain its users within an extractive environment. Someone once pointed out that we use the word 'users' for technology in the same way we use it for people dependent on alcohol or drugs.

That might sound pretty Matrix-y, but the positive side of that process is that artists and curators — critical thinkers who are always looking for a crack in the wall — are taking a critical outlook on all this, the same way that great digital artists of the 20th century were looking at surveillance, and identity through the lens of technology. They introduce projects and initiatives that not only show the two-faced nature of this phenomenon but also use the same techniques to create powerful works of contemporary critique.

I’m thinking about teamLab’s The World of Irreversible Change as one example. You may know teamLab for their famous digital flowers and cascades, but they’ve used the same techniques to create a lesser-known, brilliant, and dark critique of consumerism; an experience that uses the very tools of entertainment to lure you into a trap of greed and destruction.

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I was on a train from Berlin to Strasbourg — terribly delayed, but it was a beautiful sunny day. As we slowly moved through the green fields of central Germany, I was listening to Kyle and Yancey talk about the Internet and the creative culture of the 21st century like no one else can. I’m not sure I’ve heard something equally inspiring since perhaps Rhizome’s 7x7 or one of MoMA’s R&D salons. Do check it…

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There is no one linear algebra that can help define where immersive art came from.

There is no methodology that will help us divide art from nonart or support my modernist effort to determine who is an entertainer and who is the philosopher in the room.

There is and there will be no canon, although there could be versions of ‘starting points’ depending on where you stand and what you expect.

Virtual, spatial, and immersive creation are fed by multiple streams of often contradictory, or at least parallel, art histories that, when put together, do not represent a consistent chronology or set of fixed creative principles—which gives a fairly accurate representation of the kind of multilayered, omnipotent yet standardized, audiovisual plane we live in today.

An art critic’s nightmare—which is perhaps why s…

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Most of us, when traveling to an event, go through a similar routine: go to the airport, prepare for your talk on the plane, get to the hotel, rush through welcome drinks, go on stage, do your networking, make it through dinner, exchange cards (if you even do cards), get duty-free gifts for family, go home.

Sometimes, we get to see a local show or inject some express sightseeing. Sometimes, we go to parties with friends who are part of the same event. Usually, this is as good as it gets.

But sometimes—very rarely—you board that plane without knowing that what you’re about to experience will transform the way you see things and make you question whether the way you live your everyday professional life actually makes sense.

You step onto a piece of land that unexpectedly offers you a new perspective you didn’t even know existed—but that, deep down, you always wanted in your life.

When th…

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The show consists of eight exclusive large-scale visual and sonic artworks rotating in three chapters. Each piece represents a distinct style, originating from a life-long practice of artists whose expertise spans architecture, film, animation, sculpture, theater, dance, music, and audio.

Here are some of the initial insights from this year's edition, followed by questions I’d like to focus on further as we observe an ongoing shift towards various models of immersive art and entertainment experiences.

How We Approached This Year

A lot of how the final programming at Mercer Labs came together was a result of three stars aligning: the fit …

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As an Immersive Curator (what does it actually mean to curate Immersive Art? It’s definitely more about orchestrating the way we feel in a physical space, rather than telling a story) and as a citizen (does being a citizen immediately has to imply being concerned?), I believe that before we start seeking hope — which I expect to become a major theme in upcoming art events — we need space for reflection that allows for a radical suspension of judgment.

Melancholy

Now, a space for reflection should not be confused with a SPA.

One couldn’t help b…

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But as von Trier’s fox said: ‘Chaos Reigns!’, so let’s embrace the chaos and carry on.

‘When I’m bored, I pick up a good novel, sit by the fireplace, and watch the fire.’ — Oscar Wilde

I do believe that how technology is designed and built reflects a vision of reality.

It's someone's vision that became convincing enough to share it with others and make others perceive it as their own. It’s not original to say but it’s worth remembering every now and then that what ‘reality’ means signifies a whole set of different things for different people.

For some, reality will be a political chessboard, a space of struggle between the oppressed and exploited and the guilty. For others, it will be nature’s eternal parade, with its sophisticated ways we try to loc…

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Apple tells developers not to call their AR or VR apps AR or VR apps

You’ve probably seen many similar posts and comments expressing disappointment and anger at some of the most recent AI developments:

“The generative AI boom is in full swing now. Some people are thrilled. Others, not so much. A growing community of writers, programmers, artists, musicians, lawyers, researchers, policymakers, and regular concerned citizens is coalescing to look at this moment critically, to ask tough questions, and to advocate for guardrails to make sure that technological progress doesn’t destroy creative industries. Is scraping the web for training data ethical? Who gets to decide whether AI art is any good? How should copyright law apply to AI-generated work?” — Kate Knibbs, Pocket/ WIRED

“More and more evidence will emerge that generative AI and large language models provide false information and…

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• That young people prefer mushrooms to VR headsets. In a series of articles about the future of art in the Beaux Arts Magazine (‘L’Art en 2063’), one immediately notices that all the op-eds by theorists and curators aged 40+ revolve around AI and technology. On the other hand, statements by artists under 20 focus on natural materials (mycelium), ancestral knowledge, reusing existing resources, and collaborative work with local artists and communities. Not a single 20-year-old mentions machine learning or digital technology, and none discusses a globalized take on a digitally enhanced cultural 'experience.'

  Established markets and mainstream institutions are considered hypocritical and toxic. I observed a similar trend in the way my nephews (23 and 16 y. o.) and their friends approach their reality and potential futures, but I wasn't …

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I love how future questions never bore us. We enjoy asking them almost as much as answering them. Discussing the future is like talking about dreams, or gods: we both know these phenomena are constructs of our imagination, and yet we put so much passion into debating them.

Anyway — Immersive and film festivals! Great question.

It’s hard to predict where new creative movements will arise. Art history is full of unexpected discoveries and fusions that happened in various spaces that allowed them to grow (think NFTs — an ephemeral avant-garde born in the heart of libertarian Silicon Valley; what are the odds?).

The fin de siècle Paris melting pot happened in cafes and bars because artists who were going against the current often had no means to pay their heating bills. So they were spending cold days and evenings in places where it wa…

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Unsurprisingly, I decided to dedicate this summer to AI and its impact on creativity – which unexpectedly became a process of self-reflection that made me revisit some of the questions about the uniqueness of how we think and make things.

Incidentally, the rise of AI in my professional surroundings has awakened a need to learn and study again, and to look at what I know through a new lens.

In the 2010s, I had a turbulent intellectual affair with transhumanism, which taught me that as much as Silicon Valley may be fueled with existential dread and anxiety, it rarely provides important answers to fundamental human questions. Ten years later, I realize that in order to prepare f…

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