CYFEST 15: Vulnerability comprises a series of touring exhibitions held around the world at major cultural and public institutions. It took place in Yerevan and Miami in 2023 and will continue in Venice and New York in 2024.
The new large group exhibition brings together the (anti)fragility of biological, social and cybernetic spaces, personal memories and scientific imagination, facsimiles of rain and indexing, semiotic writings, artistic exploration of nonhuman co-authorship, and the connection between knitting patterns and Mandelbrot sets.
Yvetta Fedorova, The Procession, paper-cut installation, fragment, 2024. © Yvetta Fedorova. Photo: Liam McKeon, 2023.
The programme includes installations, performances and discursive content. Among the highlights is Tuula Närhinen’s multidisciplinary project Drop Tracer, which addresses nonhuman agency and the relationship between images and the natural world. Ann Marie Maes’s bacteria-grown skins investigate the sculptural potential of organic materials and the interfaces between the human and the nonhuman, the macroscopic and the microscopic. Among the pioneers of Science Art, the Where Dogs Run collective examines terms of Mandelbrot sets expressed through knitting patterns in a live performative installation. Through the technique of frottage, Mariateresa Sartori gives value to unexplored geology and sheds light on the little-known history of the Rosà quarry in Vicenza. Elena Gubanova and Ivan Govorkov’s multimedia installation recreates the concept of “time density” developed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kozyrev. The exhibition also presents the rarely exhibited Re-Pressions monotypes by acclaimed Armenian artist Samvel Baghdasaryan (1956–2017), experimental video art by Fabrizio Plessi, inflatable fabric sculptures by Irina Korina, architectural and urban objects made from recycled LEDs by Alexandra Dementieva, Anna Frants’s new installation and much more (press release).
Artists: Samvel Baghdasaryan, Ludmila Belova, Max Blotas, Alexandra Dementieva, Alexey Dymdymarchenko, Yvetta Fedorova, Anna Frants, Elena Gubanova & Ivan Govorkov, Irina Korina, Natalia Lyakh, AnneMarie Maes, Phill Niblock & Katherine Liberovskaya, Tuula Närhinen, Nao Nishihara, Fabrizio Plessi, Mariateres
Editorial note: the artist list ends at this point in the original publication.
CYFEST, one of Eastern Europe’s largest international media art festivals, was founded by a group of independent artists and curators in 2007. Since its inception, its main objective has been to examine the dialogue between different visual languages and technological cultures, exploring various forms of cooperation and sharing between art professionals and scientific communities. CYFEST brings together artists, curators, educators, engineers, programmers and media activists from around the world, creating a platform for mapping, mediating and documenting new media art at regional and international levels.
CYFEST 15: Vulnerability
Theme: Vulnerability
Dates: 15 April–30 August 2024§
Venue: CREA – Cantieri del Contemporaneo, Giudecca 211-b, 30133 Venice
Fabrizio Plessi, Energy, video installation, 2016. CYFEST 15: Vulnerability, HayArt Cultural Center, Yerevan, Armenia, 2023. Photo: Anna Prilutskaya.
English translation of the original Italian announcement.