EMAP GARDEN 2021

This year’s Werkleitz Festival move to… is a correspondence venue for Ars Electronica 2021 A New Digital Deal, focusing on the question of the impulses that art can provide in our crisis-ridden times. In three streamed programmes on the sociosphere, ecosphere and bodydatasphere as well as on the website the Werkleitz Festival and the European Media Art Platform (EMAP) will present 44 works by artists of the European Media Art Platform which deal with the impact of new technologies on our world.

Over the past four years, the participating artists and collectives at the 11 institutions of the European Media Art Platform, supported by Creative Europe as one of 15 European cultural platforms, have been researching the urgent challenges of our time.

The three festival spheres and programmes set the thematic framework: The sociosphere focuses on the social, political and economic challenges of our digital, globalised world. The ecosphere highlights the consequences of digitalisation on our ecosystem, the gain of knowledge through a change of perspective away from humans and towards other forms of life. In the context of the bodydatasphere the artists focus on the digital bodies and senses and in particular on the fact that they are increasingly integrated into technological environments, monitored or controlled by them.

The works of the sociosphere contextualise our digital society from different perspectives.

Artists: Nico Angiuli (IT), Clusterduck (FR/DE/IT), DISNOVATION.ORG (FR), Doug Fishbone (GB), Robertas Narkus (LT), Forms of Ownership (HK/MK/IE/US): Alan Cummingham; Vienne Chan & Boris Oistermann; OPA (Obsessive Possessive Aggression), Kentaro Kumanomido (DE) & Teaque Owen (DE), Aay Liparoto (BE), Martin Nadal (ES), Chloé Galibert-Laîné (FR) & Kevin B. Lee (DE/US), Total Refusal (AT), Anna Ridler (GB), Rybn.org (FR), Wouter Moraal (NL), Liliana Zeic (PL)

The contributions of the ecosphere shed light on the consequences of the digitalisation of our ecosystem, knowledge generated by a shift in perspective away from humans and towards other life forms, and the opportunities for “peaceful co-existence” and cooperation between species.

Artists: Kat Austen (GB/DE), Marco Barotti (IT), Florent Di Bartolo (FR), Gil Delindro (PT), Anna Dumitriu (GB) & Alex May (GB), Daniel Hengst (DE), Darsha Hewitt (DE), Konrad Korabiewski (DK/IS), Carolin Liebl (DE) and Nikolas Schmid-Pfähler (DE), MAEID (AT), Joana Moll (ES), Kasia Molga (PL/UK), Robertina Šebjanič (SI) & Gjino Šutić (HR), Taavi Suisalu (EE), Stefan Laxness (GB/IS)

Our bodies are being measured and analysed, dissected and optimised. What are the limits of our self-knowledge? What is the actual essence of human life or where is it to be found? Must we or do we want to transcend the familiar limits of our bodies and enter into a post or transhuman age in order to have any future at all?

Artists: FLOW Architecture (UK/DE/IT), Andrius Arutiunian (NL), Andrej Boleslavský (CZ), Adam Donovan (AU) & Katrin Hochschuh (DE), Mark Farid (GB), Moritz Simon Geist (DE), Sophie Hoyle (GB), Karen Lancel (NL) and Hermen Maat (NL), Aleksandra Niemczyk (PL), Margherita Pevere (IT), Quimera Rosa (FR), Silvia Rosani (GB), Birk Schmithüsen (DE), uh513 (María Castellanos & Alberto Valverde) (ES)

The virtual closing exhibition will feature the 44 works that have been produced with the support of Creative Europe. The three spheres of the Werkleitz festival provide the framework for these works.

(from the press release)