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The New Art Fest/where art meets technology, is an international festival of art and technology, held, in Lisbon, since 2016.

Focused on instrumental relationship between art, digital electronics, computer science, artificial intelligence, robotics, Internet and social networks, The New Art Fest curatorship relies on a close cooperation between art and society, thanks to the linkages between theory, criticism, science and new technologies. It also aims to be a platform for the dissemination of innovative experiences.

Curator’s manifesto

Restart

Covic pandemic is not vanished, yet. According to some predictions,normality, probably a new normality, will not take place until 2024, or 2025. Then, we hope it will become either less intensive, consumerist, childish and unequal, avoing depletion finite resources, to become more free, suitable and stable, sharing, therefore, in increasing harmony, all things in life or in what life depends.

Until then, improving transparency and quality of information, as well as reducing advertising and speculation and wondering the world’s widespread destruction caused by pandemic and the solutions provided, is primordial in artistic activities, and all cultural expressions in a wider sense. Hence, the core of this Festival.

Since its first edition, in 2016, in physical (in real life) and immaterial (on-line) spaces, has quickly and successfully adapted new habits to overcome the constraints caused by the coronavirus, spreading out all over the world. Pandemia was the theme of the The new Art Fest|where art meets technology, 20_21 first part edition, leading to an extraordinary Open Call, with 50 artists and collectives (selected from 167 applications), a survey of Chinese art created by the so-called Generation Y, that is, by the so-called digital natives generation, as well as a collaboration with the Hong Kong techno-creative community, including videos by five artists chosen by Isaac Leung, produced in a partnership with Content Lab and the Hong Kong Videotage, for TOMI network, and an on-line discussion board.

Though this event was already foreseen. but not allowed to show in Lisbon, will now take place, between July and September 2021, at Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência (National Museum of Natural History and Science), Carpintarias de São Lázaro  (São Lázaro’s Carpentry) on electronic panels of MOP-TOMI at Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade de Lisboa  (Faculty of Fine Arts of University of Lisbon) and, once again, on our on-line platform. Two exhibitions, a collective one, at MUHNAC, an individual, by Rodrigo Gomes (a Black Raven Award 2020 winner) and another edition of The House of Thoughts, started in 2020 (Session 1), with a following, in September 2, under the theme Reboot.

António Cerveira Pinto

Black Raven Award 2020

MA_perfil_Rodrigo-Gomes

Rodrigo Gomes encapsulates two contemporary phenomena in an astute, yet entertaining video. Initially, he traces the stock image of a pretty model who has surreptitiously taken over our visual landscape. Secondly, the video addresses one of the most alarming dimensions of AI and machine learning: deep fake. The former is charming, the latter treacherous. Both act like viruses that could potentially shape our experience of politics, news, entertainment, advertisement and maybe even our daily life. 

The jury highlighted the depiction of a pandemic that is transforming our cultural space while we still pretend that everything is fine

A pure product of the COVID-19 lockdown, this video shows how life in tight space, surrounded by noisy neighbours and increasing restrictions of movements, can become the catalyst for creativity. Reminiscent of a period when everything seemed to fall into a muffled hysteria, Kristina Petuknica demonstrates how an eloquent audio-visual experience can be orchestrated by one artist on her window view with a mobile phone, a violin, ambient noise and a couple of electronic units.

WELCOME TO LISBON!

Welcome to the 4th edition of The New Art Fest — where art meets technology.

The New Art Fest is an art, science, and technology festival taking place in Lisbon since 2016.

During the preparation of The New Art Fest of 2020, a catastrophic, invisible, but highly destructive world event occurred and remains. Daily life fell like a house of cards. Museums and art galleries have closed. Artists are no longer able to work in their studios. We become even more digital and more online, leaving physical spaces left to uncertainty. Political tensions around the world gave the necessary push for a perfect storm and collective hysteria. The sponsors have disappeared. The festival was suddenly floating in a physical and budgetary void.

We had two options: to cancel everything planned, throw a year of work out of the window, or migrate forcefully to online platforms. We choose not to give up, and so we moved on to a radically dematerialized festival, hoping to make the most of its four sections: Generation Y, Bit Street Honk Kong, Maker Art and The House of Thoughts.

In the absence of a virus-free white cube, The New Art Fest had to immerse in the technological aether, replacing space with time. That is one artist a day.

The Generation Y exhibition, which brings together artists, works and references from more than 30 Chinese authors born after 1980, opens on July 9, at 15:00 (22:00 in Beijing, Macau and Hong Kong). The Maker Art exhibition, the result of an international Open Call that attracted more than 150 artists from all over the world will open its digital doors on July 29. Bit Street Hong Kong, resulting from the partnership between The New Art Fest and Content Lab – one of the leading institutions of ‘new media art’ in China -, opens on August 7, with an international Zoom conference. The House of Thoughts program to be announced soon.

António Cerveira Pinto
Luísa Moreira