Labcyberspaces Project: Laboral Art and Industrial Creation Centre inauguration show

Labcyberspaces Project

Laboral Art and Industrial Creation Centre will be inaugurated on March 30. Located in Gijon, Asturias, the building designed by Luis Moya as an orphanage for miners’ children, was then altered and expanded when it was decided to house a multidisciplinary space devoted to the exhibition, research, training and production of new art and industrial creation forms. Labcyberspaces Project is part of the inauguration program and consists in ten selected artworks elaborating on the connections between art and technology and industry. The international jury members (Alex Adriaansens, director of V2_, Christiane Paul (Whitney Museum adjunct curator of new media arts, Gerfried Stocker, Ars Electronica artistic director and Rosina Gómez-Baeza, director of Laboral), have chosen projects that effectively use technology as a consubstantial part of the artwork conception. Sheep Market by Aaron Koblin and Logo.Hallucination by Christophe Bruno are two of them. ‘Alerting Infrastructure!’ by Jonah Brucker Cohen is a physical hit counter that translates web site hits of a physical location into physical building interior damage. ‘I’m a net artist’ by Area3 is a cartoon video which answers with humour and irony to the question ‘does net art exist?’. The same irony is behind he project ‘Seven Mile Boots’ by Beloff, Berger and Pichlmair, a pair of interactive shoes with audio; one can wear the boots, walk around as a flaneur simultaneously in the physical world and in the literal world of the internet, while the pieces on ‘www.re-move.org’ by Lia are an attempt to articulate mathematical and natural principles below a visual surface in an enjoyable and sometimes playful way. ‘Amazon Noir’, by Ubermorgen.com, Paolo Cirio and Alessandro Ludovico, can be positioned within the actual discussion of property rights for non material goods and their use/violation on the internet. ‘Cartografía Táctica del Estrecho de Gibraltar’ by hackitectura.net e indymedia estrecho, ‘Elgiroeneleje’ by Gabriel González (dhijo-) and Deconstructed Music #1 by RAN (Carlos Navarro, Ramón Prada and Javier Ideami) complete the program. If a special attention has been paid to works exploring the notion of cyberspace as a universal meeting point, the global-localization attitude of the new digital culture centre is also quite evident. The establishment of this kind of centers in fact is aimed at a fruitful confront and collaboration between the regional cultural roots and international visitors. In this case, Asturias’ industrial tradition will be the starting point for a fruitful cultural exchange.

Valentina Culatti