Weaving With Worlds: Online Talks

24 | 06 | 21

As part of FIBER Festival’s new Reassemble Lab, three online evenings will be organised with talks about contemporary worldbuilding art practices. We will hear from audiovisual artists, writers and media critics about the potential and dark sides of simulated worlds and the digital tools that produce them.


New Mystics
Reassemble x New Mystics
Evening #3: Monday July 19, 20:00 – 22:00 (CEST)

The third online evening on contemporary worldbuilding practices is organized in partnership with New Mystics: a collaborative digital platform exploring the practices of twelve international artists merging magic, mysticism, and ritual with technologies including artificial intelligence (AI) and game engines. It brings these expanded practices together – learning from lost folklores, indigenous knowledge systems, plant healing, interstellar shamanism, and non-human intelligence, among other sources – to speculate on worlds filled with magic. New Mystic is created and curated by Alice Bucknell. During the evening, we will be talking to three artists about how they use, explore and construct myths, magical thinking in relation to ecological world(build)ing. 

Joey Holder invites us to her immersive, multimedia and room-sized installations that raise philosophical questions of our universe and things yet unknown. Lawrence Lek creates site-specific simulations and multimedia installations, often set within a Sinofuturist cinematic universe, situated between utopia and ruins. Patricia Dominguez Claro creates artworks resembling shamanic shrines, cybernetic altars and healing facilities to deal with extraction, cultural appropriation and the destruction of natural heritage.

With:
Joey Holder
Lawrence Lek
Patricia Dominguez Claro

Moderation and curation: Alice Bucknell in collaboration with Jarl Schulp

After the artists’ presentations, there will be a brief group discussion/Q+A, which the audience can join in through the chat feature. More information about the programme and tickets will follow soon.

New Mystics features both human and non-human voices, with texts co-authored by a Language AI. It brings these expanded practices together – learning from AI poetics, lost folklores, indigenous knowledge systems, plant healing, psychedelics, science fiction, interstellar shamanism, and non-human intelligence, among other sources – to speculate on worlds filled with magic.

TICKETS

More information: https://www.newmystics.xyz & http://reassemble.world


Blended Horizons
Evening #1: June 30, 20:00 – 22:00 (CEST)

During the first evening ‘Blended Horizons’, we will talk to three guests about the potential of virtual worlds, playing, storytelling and critical future thinking in relation to ecology and cultural change. Professor Alenda Y. Chang will focus on worldbuilding within the context of her expertise on digital games and ecology. Storyteller, landscape architect and audiovisual artist Jeremy Kamal explores themes of landscape and the concept of (black) culture as a terraforming phenomenon. After the three short presentations, we will talk to our guests. The audience can join in via chat. 

With:
Alenda Y. Chang (US)
Jeremy Kamal (US)
Pinar Yoldas (US)

TICKETS


Under The Surface
Evening #2: Monday July 5, 20:00 – 22:00 (CEST)

The second online evening on contemporary worldbuilding practices is organised in cooperation with designer and media researcher Abdo Hassan. Under The Surface takes a critical look at the origins, infrastructure and social/ecological impact of influential digital tools, depicting new worlds. Specifically, we look at AI as a worldbuilding technology. 

With:
Dr Peaks Krafft (US)
Mick Jongeling (NL)
Ploipailin Flynn (UK)

 

TICKETS

Reassemble is made possible with the generous support of the Amsterdam Fund of the Arts and Creative Industry Fund NL. Project partners are CREATURES, Tolhuistuin, Climaginaires and New Mystics.

New Mystics is generously supported with a National Lottery Project Grant from Arts Council England, with in-kind support from Rupert, the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, and Serpentine Galleries.