In the midst of crisis and forbidden touches, we are grasping new futures!
Since 2005 and through its five past editions, Touch Me festival has so far explored dark matter, time, pleasure, intelligence and energy abuse. Developing continuously at the intersection of art and science, this year the festival is bigger than ever!
The exhibition programme, sound performances, lectures, artist talks, workshops and film programme gather works in the field of exploratory and interdisciplinary arts and experimental sound. Along with the thematic outline which focuses on new forms of coexistence between living beings, nature and technology, the festival also brings KONTEJNER’s curatorial exhibition and performance programme developed within two European projects: EMAP - European Media Art Platform and Re-Imagine Europe.
TWO EXHIBITIONS AND A FILM PROGRAMME
TOUCH ME EXHIBITION AND FILM PROGRAMME | This thematic programme reflects on biotechnological and other possibilities of hybrid, symbiotic and chimeric intertwining of living and non-living beings, exploring what happens when we truly get rid of nature - culture, living - non-living, human - non-human oppositions.
Exhibition participants | Koen Vanmechelen (BE), Maja Smrekar (SI), Thomas Thwaites (UK), Ai Hasegawa (JP), Špela Petrič (SI), E.A. 1/1 S.V. (HR) M28 (HR), Luana Lojić (HR), Antonio Kutleša (HR), Marta de Menezes (PT), María Antonia González Valerio (MX)
Curators: Jurij Krpan (Kapelica Gallery, Slovenia), Klara Petrović and Luja Šimunović (KONTEJNER, Croatia)
Film programme “Evolution Passes Through the Stomach” | Jenna Sutela (FI), Sasha Litvintseva (RU) and Beny Wagner (DE), Erin Espelie (US)
Curator: Mirna Belina (Sonic Acts, The Netherlands)
On the 17h of September, a Cosmocafe will be organised as part of Koen Vanmechelen's Human Rights Pavilion.
Planetary Community Chicken
Koen Vanmechelen
While Schrödinger’s cat needs an observer to (not) exist, Koen Vanmechelen’s art requires a community to either become or to become not. It requires a nest to mature. The Planetary Community Chicken (PCC) installation of the Belgian artist (55) at Touch Me Festival connects the local Croatian nest to the global noosphere. As stated in neon, they both need each other.
In this installation, Vanmechelen interbreeds a local commercial chicken – the Sasso – with the 25th generation of his international Cosmopolitan Chicken Project (CCP). The birds are breeding in a coop, while the previous CCP generations* figure majestically in the installation as a Greek choir witnessing the birth of something fascinating and intimidating. The delivery of life.
The 25th Generation is called the Mechelse Hrvatica. It is in itself a cross of the Croatian Kokoš hrvatica with the Mechelse Collonca, the 24th CCP crossing. It is Vanmechelens latest milestone in his 20 yearlong artistic-scientific quest with crossing genes and memes expressed in the creation of new hundreds of animal species and hybrid installations. The tools of a shamanic migrant’s quest for identity, and our place and time in the multiverse.
The installation is an outpost of Vanmechelen’s LABIOMISTA studio in Genk, Belgium. LABIOMISTA is a node in a colossal connectome. It lives by giving life and energy to others, and by receiving energy and vitality from others. It is incessantly communicating, vibrating, and pulsating, using all channels to bring a message of connectivity and healing, sharing, and bonding.
No one, It says, is a single island in a vast sea of nothingness, we are all connected. This is the message of the DNA book in the installation. We are a product of crossing, meant to cross ourselves. That dangerous process is symbolized by the lettering on the floor. It is up to the observer to walk on that bright and shiny, yellow road or circumvent it.
The installation finds a finale in a Cosmocafe. Vanmechelen organizes these “free space” around the globe as part of the development of the Human Rights Pavilion. In Croatia, he brings together, amongst other, Jurij Krpan, Curator and farmer Barbara Scheltus - van den Berg (Bogata Šuma) to debate the conditions for sustainable coexistence of individuals and human cultures with each other, and with other species on the planet.
* the taxidermy animals all died a natural death
EMAP – EUROPEAN MEDIA ART PLATFORM EXHIBITION | EMAP is a network of 11 European cultural institutions and media art organizations which annually give production grants to emerging European media artists. The group exhibition presents a selection of works based on natural sciences and cybernetics, and produced as part of the platform from 2018 until today.
Participants | Quimera Rosa (ES/AR/FR), Robertina Šebjanič (SI) & Gjino Šutić (HR), uh513 - María Castellanos & Alberto Valverde (ES), Anna Dumitriu (UK) & Alex May (UK), Taavi Suisalu (EE), Kat Austen (UK/DE), Daniela Mitterberger & Tiziano Derme (MAEID - Büro für Architektur und transmediale Kunst) (AT)
Curators: Olga Majcen Linn and Tereza Teklić (KONTEJNER, Croatia)
SOUND PERFORMANCES
E-IMAGINE EUROPE | This international project is co-created by a network of 10 cultural institutions from across Europe, active in the sphere of contemporary artistic production and transnational networking, at the same time addressing the social and political challenges we face today. As part of the festival, it brings a diverse sound performance programme with artists working in the field of experimental music and related art forms, sound research and new technologies.
Participating | Marco Donnarumma (DE/IT), Hugo Esquinca (DE/MX), Kali Malone (US), Anthea Caddy (AU/DE), Jonáš Gruska (SK)
Curator: Davorka Begović (KONTEJNER, Croatia)
ABOUT TOUCH ME FESTIVAL | Touch Me is an international manifestation that explores the relationship between art and science, created under the concept of Olga Majcen Linn and Sunčica Ostoić. It has been held every three years since 2004 and is organized by KONTEJNER | bureau of contemporary art praxis. The festival is one of our main original programmes: with the triennials Extravagant Bodies and Device_art, it defines our focus on art at the intersection of science, technology and social matters.
EXHIBITION FACTS
HALA V of Nikola Tesla Technical Museum in Zagreb
OPENING: 17.09.2020. at 7 p.m.
DURATION: 18.09.2020. - 03.10.2020.
For more information, visit the website
