25 Apr 2014

Exhibition FIELDS at RIXC, The Centre for New Media Culture, Riga

FIELDS exhibition
A European Capital of Culture Event
Arsenals Exhibition Hall of the Latvian National Museum of Art
May 16 – August 3, 2014

Fields – patterns of social, scientific, and technological transformations.

The changing role of art in society is one where it does not just create a new aesthetics but gets involved in patterns of social, scientific, and technological transformations. The exhibition FIELDS presents a lively landscape of art that challenges existing viewpoints, deconstructs social issues, and proposes positive visions for the future. Artists in the FIELDS exhibition make new combinations of existing fields-as-in-disciplines - fusing and navigating between the social and the natural, the scientific and the emotional, the sensible with the actual in imaginative ways.

The exhibition will show approximately 40 artworks by artists from all over the world, but with a special focus on Central, Eastern and Northern Europe. We would like to present some examples for the radical diversity of approaches:

The relationship with nature plays a major role in this exhibition, often in combination with ideas from the open culture that emerged on the net, about sharing resources and tackling social issues through participatory and social mechanisms. In some cases, such as Leave it in the Ground by Oliver Ressler (2013), or Seedsunderground (2013-14) by Shu Lea Cheang, the work carries a clear and direct political message, concerning issues such as renewable energy, sustainability or the fight for the diversity of agricultural seeds and plants.

Other work, less overtly political, opens our senses and minds to new ways of seeing the world, referring to what French philosopher Jaques Rancière calls the 'distribution of the sensible'. Lisa Jevbratt shows how different reality is if we imagine to look at the world with animal eyes.

In her work Foraging fields (2014) the Belgian artist Annemie Maes from collective Okno combines rooftop gardening and beehives to create new maps of the distribution of plant life in cities. Erich Berger measures changes in the magnetic field of the Earth. Manu Luksch offers a free ride on a water taxi in exchange for a conversation with Kayak Libre (2011).

The intersection of the globalised economy with digital technologies, financial markets exploitative labour practices and culture and concerns of local communities and indigenous people are addressed in works such as Histoire Économique (2013) by British artist Hayley Newman, Working Life (2013) by Danish artist collective Superflex and Eccentric Archive (2012-14) by Ines Doujak in collaboration with John Barker.

The relevations by Edward Snowden about global surveillance activities of the USA through its PRISM program have made evident how important the invisible world of data flows and data bases is. Data fields, battlefields and the war on terror mark the background for works such as Endless War (2012-14) by British-Japanese artist couple YoHa (Graham Harwood and Matsuko Yokokoji), and We should take nothing for granted! - on the building of an alert and knowledgeable citizenry by Slovenian artist Marko Peljhan and Project Atol.

The relationship between matter and information, as suggested by cybernetics pioneer Norbert Wiener, is the topic of the Earth Computer (2014) Martin Howse and Ghostradio (2014) by Pamela Neuwirth, Markus Decker and Franx Xaver.

These are just some of key topics and examples of up to 40 works that will be shown at Fields.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a festival Art+Communication' 2014 program with public lectures, live performances, concert as well as an international conference. Both the exhibition and festival are one of the key events of ' Riga 2014 – European Capital of Culture' special programme.

Curators - Raitis Smits, Rasa Smite (Latvia) and Armin Medosch (Austria). Producer – RIXC, The Centre for New Media Culture.

Artists: Oliver Ressler, Shu Lea Cheang, Lisa Jevbratt, Superflex, Gints Gabrans, Marko Peljhan, Cecile Babiole, Voldemars Johansons, Erich Berger, Martins Ratniks, Hayley Newman, Annemie Maes, YoHa, Martin Howse, Franz Xaver, and many more.

Support: The Fields exhibition is supported by Riga 2014, Riga City Council, State Cultural Capital Foundation, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, Austrian Ministry of Culture and Embassy of Austria in Riga, EU Culture 2007-2013 programme, Nordic Culture Point, The Latvian National Museum of Art, Goethe Institute in Riga, French Institute in Latvia .

Partners: Soft Control, Techno-Ecologies, Renewable Network, Liepaja University's Art Research Lab (MPLab),  Latvian National Museum of Art.


Contact: fields@rixc.lv, or phone: +371-26546776, fields.rixc.lv