Building new realities through the arts

28/10/2022

In the world there are diverse stories and ways of perceiving reality; from sounds, colors, movement, to the multiplicity of cultural expressions that narrate the imaginaries of communities. There are other worlds coexisting with ours, like the one we were able to experience in the XXI Festival Internacional de la Imagen in the SURtropías version.

From the C-Transmedia Research Center we participated in SURtropías, a program full of new perspectives, academic, research and creative spaces, which questioned the practices in design and art, also interviewing, first hand, artists who contribute to the generation of new knowledge in the field of digital art.

During the day, the Spanish musician and director of the Orquesta del Caos, José Manuel Berenguer transported us during the international seminar,“Arte y mecánica cuántica: inicio de un proyecto” to a space where classical physics loses its scope and the temporal order between different events is indefinable. In the presentation of the seminar, all aesthetic barriers were left open to the illusion of reaching the limit of the comprehensible, of unraveling the complexity of the world through the acceptance that things are not as our senses tell us they are.

Mario H. Valencia, José Manuel Berenguer, Gonzalo Biffarella and Oscar Ceballos participated in the work “Tele Espacios Activos IX” with the soundscape “Tormenta”, a perfect stimulus to experience the experiential moments that marked the life of the composer Iannis Xenakis, through the three moments of the storm; the calm that precedes it, the storm itself in its fury and the chaos that leads to calm, showing the manifestation of the love for nature that is a permanent element in the work of Xenakis.

On the other hand, the artists Alexandra Rădulescu (visual artist) and Annabelle Playe (music and composer), transported us to a sound and photographic experience, to a world understood as Krasis. For them, the image of the world as krasis contains the potential to establish a connected and meaningful relationship with the environment, trying to express from their work that which is deep, close or distant through filters, strong and dynamic contrasts. His visual and sound presentation connected the spaces, natural landscapes, emotions and the reaction of the audiences when they attend the work, taking the public to live closely the physical expressions of art.

Moving on to the world of video games, we talked with French designer and animator Abel Kohen, who has worked with companies such as Cartoon Network, Headspace, Facebook, Adidas, Netflix, Nokia, BBC and Wimbledon, among others. During the festival he presented the International Seminar “VR Storytelling: Things I’ve learned making Biolum”, in which he spoke about the development of the video game ‘Biolum’; an immersive science fiction experience, in which the depths of the ocean are explored through the perspective of a scientist, who as she dives into the underwater mysteries, discovers that things are not as they seem.

Finally, during this great event we were able to experience firsthand how design, art, science and technology make visible other ways of perceiving the world through transdisciplinarity. An experience that as a research center allowed us to connect with the present and the future and that invites us to be inspired and to consider new research and creations. A space of recognition of cultural agents and guests that expand our knowledge and new realities.

Redaction: communications and scientific dissemination C-Transmedia