Text by CLOT Magazine
ArtFutura is a festival of Digital Culture and Creativity established in 1990. Since then, each edition has explored and presented cutting-edge trends and projects concerning New Media, Virtual Reality, Interactive Design and Digital Animation internationally.
Among the host cities are Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Ibiza, London, Madrid, Montevideo, Paris, and Rome. This year’s event will be performed entirely online from Thursday, the 15th, to Sunday, 18th of April 2021, over a four-day program that will take place at Iklectik, Music Hackspace and Watermans.
Iklectik is a platform founded in 2014 focusing on contemporary art, critical practices and experimental music; Music Hackspace is a discursive initiative started with the idea of fostering new technologies for music production and interaction and bringing together a community that shares common yet diversified interests in the field. Finally, Watermans is West London’s arts centre whose attention is oriented towards independent cinema, family theatre, live performance, exhibitions and outdoor arts.
Sonic arts, interaction, hardware hacking, visual music, VR, gravitational waves, modular synthesis, audiovisual mapping, and new aesthetics in digital art are the main topics addressed by ArtFutura 2021. A thrilling schedule, including discussions, masterclasses, artists’ talks, AV performances, and AV programs, will accompany the audience through these emerging new languages thanks to many artists and creators’ participation.
The 30th edition of ArtFutura will propose an audiovisual programme showcasing the selected projects and works into two different sections. The first one, Futura Graphics, will be about new aesthetics, digital animations and experimental, while the second one, Artworks, will be about performances, new media installations and interactive environments.
During the festival’s first day, the virtual stage will be occupied by a panel discussion entitled Computer Graphics and Visual Content in VR. James E. Marks, Nicola Plant, Allegra Shorto and Chris Speed are the creatives included in this first appointment.
On Friday, Leon Trimble will perform the piece The Gravity Synth. Over the weekend, Blanca Regina will hold a workshop about audiovisual mapping; Ronen Tachun, Matteo Zamagni, Panja Gobel and Montxo Algora will have talks. We will also be able to enjoy Live AV performances by Jon Weinel and Blanca Regina, and Pierre Bouvier Patron.
