Andy Barrt, The Snow Flower of the North, sculptural performance. CYFEST 17, CREA, Venice, 2026. Photo: Anton Khlabov.
For ArtNight Venezia, CYFEST 17 — the international media art festival organised by CYLAND MediaArtLab — presents a programme of discussions, performances and video art on 19 and 20 June, bringing art, technology and ecological reflection into dialogue.
The programme opens on 19 June at Ca’ Foscari with the 50th edition of LASER Talk CYLAND, devoted to Hybrid Ecologies: Natura Naturans. International scholars, artists and curators will discuss new relationships between nature, technology and cultural processes at the centre of contemporary research between art and science.
This will be followed on 20 June by the third edition of Sleepless Video Art Night, an overnight marathon of contemporary video art that will animate the Auditorium Santa Margherita until the early hours.
The night will open with TRINITY. An Immersive Lament in the Age of Extinction, the new project by artist and filmmaker Lena Herzog, presented for the first time in an immersive format through Apple Vision Pro technology. A work in three movements, it addresses urgent themes including the extinction of languages and cultures, the nuclear threat and the possibilities of humanity’s rebirth.
The programme continues with Spaces of Transition, an international selection devoted to environmental transformation, migration and new contemporary identities, concluding with a selection of works from Mapping Diaspora: Russian Art Beyond Borders.
International Media Art Festival CYFEST 17
The International Media Art Festival CYFEST 17 presents Natura Naturans: Human Beings, Nature, Landscape, a new edition of one of the longest-running international festivals devoted to media art, curated by CYLAND MediaArtLab in collaboration with Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the Center for Studies in Russian, Central Asian and Caucasian Art. The festival brings together artists, curators, engineers and activists from around the world working with time-based installations, sound, video art, algorithmic compositions and other hybrid forms in a shared reflection on the relationships between human beings, nature and landscape.
CYFEST is an itinerant media art festival now in its 17th edition, which began in Thessaloniki at the end of 2025 and continues in Venice with a programme of performances, screenings and discussions, culminating in the temporary exhibition Natura Naturans: Human Beings, Nature, Landscape at CREA Cantieri del Contemporaneo, on display until 31 August 2026.
The exhibition’s title evokes the philosophical concept of Natura Naturans, meaning nature understood as a generative force, as process rather than product. In this context, art is conceived as an active principle: a space in which light, time and matter emerge. The exhibition brings works from the Frants Collection into dialogue with contemporary media art, tracing a continuous line of artistic creation from the twentieth century to the present.
In her automated kinetic drawings, Anna Frants explores the constantly evolving relationship between light and time. Jaanika Peerna’s installation evokes the fluidity and atmospheric memory of glaciers. Tuula Närhinen revisits avian evolution by speculating about possible hybrid bird species created to feed on plastic waste. Mariateresa Sartori exposes an anemometer to the wind to produce circular drawings that fluctuate between mechanical objectivity and almost imperceptible human intervention. The futuristic kinetic installation by Elena Gubanova and Ivan Govorkov revisits the experimental energy of the early avant-garde. The collective AES+F explores corporeality, depression and altered perception through digitally distilled aesthetics.
Other participating artists: Andy Barrt, Aleksandr Bochkov & Matvei Peshkov, CAA (CYLAND Audio Archive), Alexandra Dementieva, Alexey Grachev, Sergey Kishchenko, Sergei Komarov & Lidiia Griaznova, Alexei Kostroma, Valery Koshlyakov, Natalia Lyakh, Linda Loh, Dmitriy Shishov, Eric Vernhes and Mathieu Zurstrassen.
At the opening on 8 May, Mexican artist Hugo Solis gave a live performance, accompanied by a participatory performance by Jaanika Peerna with a sculpted piece of ice as a totemic emblem of strength, beauty and environmental fragility.
On 9 May, the Auditorium Santa Margherita hosted the video programme What’s in a Story?, devised by curator Barbara London, featuring Wendi Yan, Shi Zheng, Maitha Abdalla, Tamar Zohara Ettun, Tadasu Takamine, Carla Gannis, Eva Papamargariti, Jane Bustin, Andro Eradze, Sky Hopinka and Dana Kavelina. The evening concluded with the presentation of the volume Afterwards. Art in the Time of Change, produced by CYLAND Foundation and published by CURA, with Valentino Catricalà, Barbara London and Li Zhenhua, moderated by Professor Silvia Burini.
CYFEST 17 is organised by CYLAND Foundation. Its main sponsor is the Frants Foundation. The project was made possible through collaboration with Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, the Center for Studies in Russian, Central Asian and Caucasian Art — CSAR, CURA and Weave.
Exhibition information
CYFEST 17. Natura Naturans: Human Beings, Nature, Landscape
CREA Cantieri del Contemporaneo, Giudecca 211/B, 30133 Venice, Italy.
8 May–31 August 2026.
Organiser: CYLAND Foundation.
Curators: Anna Frants, Elena Gubanova, Silvia Burini, Giuseppe Barbieri, Barbara London, Sergei Komarov, Lidiia Griaznova, Alexandra Dementieva.
Opening hours: Tuesday–Saturday 11:00–18:00; Sunday 11:00–17:00; Monday closed.
Festival website
CYLAND on Instagram
English translation of the original Italian announcement.