Introducing the Artist Open Studios
What aesthetic does a healthy Internet have? For each of the Spaces at MozFest 2017, we’ve invited an artist to imagine and visually represent our core Internet health issues.
At last year’s MozFest, we presented an interactive exhibition called MozEx, designed as a collaboration between Digital Learning teams at Tate Gallery and Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum.
We’ve amped up this collaboration, bringing Artist Open Studios to MozFest 2017. Selected artists will share their practices and will work live on their pieces; in this way, the public and participants will get a glimpse as to the process behind the product, something that Internet users can rarely see.
“The Artist Open Studios is a new approach we have mind-mapped and shaped for this year’s MozFest,” co-curators Luca M. Damiani of Tate Gallery and Irini Papadimitriou of V&A said. “The live creation during the weekend will challenge even more the role of the arts in technology and in the web culture debate.”
The space wranglers continued, “We aim to have a flow of creative practices that challenge the idea of what the Web is, opening questions rather than giving answers. We want the arts to create and disrupt.”
MozFest is pleased to announce five talented artists:
An Xiao will bring to life the Internet health issue of web literacy. An Xiao is a technologist, artist and writer from China. She leads product development at Meedan, a digital media and translation company, and is also a 2017 Fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Her book From Memes to Movements is due out next year.
Paolo will visually explore the issue of a private and secure web. Paolo is a hacktivist and conceptual artist from Italy. He uses publicly available online information to raise awareness for social justice issues.
Archana will actualize the concept of a decentralized Internet. Archana is a contemporary visual artist from India. She mixes design, art, technology, and community to create representations of Indian urban culture.
Gretta will visualize what an Internet of open innovation could look like. Gretta is a German-Australian artist, curator, and writer, exploring how technology shapes who we are as people. She has published two books: Controlling_Connectivity: Art, Psychology, and the Internet and Warnayaka Art Centre: Art in the Digital Desert.
Brooklyn will artistically envision the issues surrounding an inclusive web. Brooklyn is a South African filmmaker and photographer. He works as the digital editor for Blaque Life Quarterly in Johannesburg.
MozFest participants will be able to watch the different festival themes take form, as these artists work over the course of three days. The Artist Open Studios will be a collaborative space, where both participants and artists can share their ideas.
