Back to All Events

20th Media Art Biennale WRO 2023


  • 7 Widok Wrocław, Dolnośląskie, 50-052 Poland (map)

This fragment of the text was created last year, when new images of Russia's aggression against a neighboring country appeared, showing the destruction of meanings, damage to the world and its lexicon, signs and alphabet.

Behold V, behold From whose interception we do not understand, as once, in the twentieth century, the transformation of the Sanskrit symbol of happiness.

Is there a qualitative moment in art expressed by means of communication technology, derived from the mediatization of tools, which stabilizes communicable and damaged, mobile (politically too mobile) meanings, used freely, words and signs transformed into a propaganda slogan, seemingly universal?

If we manage to look at the transformation of meanings in the creative process directed to another person, to other people, which is not about subordination but about co-creation, maybe we will discover the mechanism of the violent impulse coming from the changeability of content.

The mechanism of communication and negotiation of content and their exchange, seemingly safe in art, has created only an inexchangeable token for the artifact and the appearance of its value as its security. Wandering around the outskirts of the economy, emphasizing the attractiveness of the unique, it is unable, however, to grasp the value of co-experiencing and negotiating content - so eloquent in and appropriate for media art.

In the next, 20th edition of the Biennale, she will act as a mediator - presenting works selected in the process of curatorial cooperation with many partners, including works created during artistic residencies, where the beginning of a creative act is always to establish grammar and vocabulary in a new situation.

This text was written a year later to present the assumptions of the Wires of Art series, preparing volunteers to work with viewers, which is also a material for the study of translating media art into languages ​​of accessibility.

Attunement is the process by which we create relationships. When we tune in to others, we allow our own inner state to shift and resonate with the other person's inner world. Using a musical metaphor: when we tune in, we look for the right sound to harmonize with another, sometimes completely different sound. It is usually a two-way process in which the mutual relationship is built on the basis of the exchange of individual perspectives, experiences and needs.

Creating an inclusive and accessible art exhibition is based on creating a space for attunement. This process may consist in the use of alternative methods of communication and presentation of works, or in multi-directional work with viewers, sensitive to the presence of another person.

Tuning in as part of the WRO 2023 Fungible Content Biennale began with a series of Wires of Art meetings, preceding the Biennale. We have prepared lectures, exercises and workshops with experts, during which our entire team preparing the WRO Biennale, together with volunteers, gained knowledge and experience on inclusiveness tools and working with viewers of all ages, including those with sensory or motor disabilities, with neurodiverse people who perceive the world from different perspectives.

The complexity of the course of exchange, reaction and diffusion of symbolic content, social constructs based on exchangeability, impermanence and dependence, but also development, is reflected in the visual setting of the event, in graphic messages and in the design of the whole through Alan Turing's reaction-diffusion model used in organic design. Ideas from the last century, which are now coming back in science, seem to be a valuable tool for examining and describing the relations of complexity. For a certain balance and consistency, we used the 'nieuk' font - described by its author Maciej Połczyński as modular, experimental and rebellious. The job typeface contains three variations of characters that give the impression of randomness by means of typesetting functions. The cut does not have a clear baseline, its shapes jump up and down depending on its own "see-me-sees". The fluidity of the characters, combined in an ambiguous way, gives the impression that the typeface contains a script different from Latin.

For the first time, on the occasion of the 20th edition of the WRO Media Art Biennale, the subject of the presentation is also the very preparation of exhibitions, the opening of which on May 10-14, 2023 will be preceded by joint work of artists and the audience, in the improvised social and club space of WRO.

This time, we are building a program based on our own choices and the competences of an international curatorial group, established during the work of the European Media Art Platform (EMAP), in order to identify the most interesting, latest projects from several hundred submissions, currently being implemented during artistic residencies in several places in Europe. Some of them will premiere at WRO. Others are the latest works that caught our attention during artistic events, having a similar to our optics of sharing mindfulness towards the hard-to-grasp and fast processes of communication and the volatility of its social meanings.

Part of the Biennale includes the works of artists to whom they sent their invitation - the Fungible Invitation to participate in WRO - authors of works present in this year's program by curatorial choice. They forwarded our exchangeable invitation further, influencing the development of the content of the program.

The launch of the Biennale in April, with a series of open lectures, shows and workshops, precedes the May period of the pop-up scene at the WRO Art Center as a meeting place for authors of works, invited artists, activists, curators, mediators, viewers working together, DJ sets exhibitions in several exhibition venues in Wrocław. Their vernissages are accompanied by performances and concerts, while the exhibitions themselves will last until the end of May 2023.

The main exhibitions and events do not so much complement the Fine-tuning Program as create a complete character of the Biennale that can be exchanged with others (viewers, participants), created through participation and mutual contact.

Previous
Previous
10 May

DADA Perspective

Next
Next
11 May

What matters for virtual museums? (Part III): Next Steps towards a Multidimensional Art Institution