ART FAIRS:HeK Special Guest of LISTE 2019
A longtime Special Guest of LISTE Art Fair is HeK (House of Electronic Arts Basel), shows contemporary art that explores and configures new technologies; it promotes an aesthetic practice that uses information technology as a medium, makes it vividly accessible and actively intervenes in its processes. HeK thereby addresses the pressing issues of 21st Century culture and makes an active contribution to their future evolution.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo LISTE Art Fair Archive
HeK (House of Electronic Arts Basel) for 2019 present an enigmatic video tutorial by French artist Elisabeth Caravella and a series of images by Belgian artist Dries Depoorter. With different approaches, both artists discuss the growing autonomy and seeming intelligence of technological devices pervading our everyday lives and the transformation occurring in our society as a result of their implementation. The cinematographic tutorial “Howto” produced by Elisabeth Caravella instructs the viewer on how to create a 3D text with a graphic software programme. “How to” is a keyword used on the internet to designate a tutorial. Originally intended for the computer field, these explanatory video screen shots are generally made by amateurs. Discovering the cinematographic potential of these screencasts, the artist wanted to make a new generation documentary fiction filmed from the screen of her computer. The film and the installation each propose a suggestive answer to the diversion of the tutorial. Whether through a linear or immersive experience in real time, they question the idea of out of scope and the concept of heterotopy. What appears to be a simple tutorial in the tradition of the numerous videos on the web slowly evolves into a desktop performance, whose purpose becomes increasingly difficult to decipher. The instructive voice-over gives way to a cryptic and elusive sound, while a phantasmagoric figure gradually occupies the screen, until it becomes the main protagonist of the video. Assembling, sharing and experimenting with private data found on the internet, digital artist Dries Depoorter, who studied electronics for six years before making the switch to art-school, tackles in a thought-provoking and playful issues like social identity, big data sharing, encryption and (the lack of) protection of our online privacy. In his series “Jaywalking Frames”, part of his Sheriff Software series, the artist combines topics such as privacy, artificial intelligence and surveillance. The series consists of a collection of pictures of pedestrians crossing the road at a red light, which were taken by the artist after he hacked unprotected surveillance cameras all over the world. The installation displays the framed pictures together with a monitor that shows the functioning of the custom software developed by the artist. Each individual image is for sale and the price is determined by the jaywalking fine that one would pay in the country where the picture was taken. Dries Depoorter‘s latest project is named: “Die With Me” a chatroom app you can only use when your phone have less than 5% battery.
Info: Curator: Boris Magrini, LISTE Art Fair 2019, Burgweg 15, Basel, Days & Hours: Preview: (by invitation only) Mon (10/6/19) 11:00-18:00, Public Opening: Mon (10/6/19) 18:00-21:00, Tue-Sat (11-15/6/19) 13:00-21:00, Sun (16/6/19) 13:00-18:00, Admission: Single entry” CHF 20, Reduced entry: CHF 10 (Students/Seniors/AHV), Free admission for kids up to 16 years, if accompanied by an adult, After 20:00: Single entry CHF 6, Students-Seniors-AHV free admission, www.liste.ch
