#arttrackwithnalini: Contextualizing Digital Art, Algorithms and NFTs

 

#arttrackwithnalini - 01 on 31st March 2021, 6 pm

Contextualizing Digital Art, Algorithms and NFTs

Speakers: Baiju Parthan, Harshit Agrawal and Shovin Bhattacharjee

Moderator: Nalini S Malaviya

Join us here WICCI Arts Leadership Council | Facebook on 31st March, 6 pm IST

 

In the current context, it is important to have a conversation on the relevance and scope of digital art, algorithms and NFTs in the Indian and global scenario. This panel attempts to locate digital art production, the import, originality and criticality of the image with regards to current trends, technological interventions, digital ownership and environmental implications of blockchain technology, if any.

Join me as I kick start #arttrackwithnalini, a series of conversations, online for now and hopefully in person soon, with experts in the field.

Recently a digital piece, by Beeple sold as an NFT for 69 million dollars at Christie’s. This has created quite a buzz, understandably. It is after all the 3rd highest priced work by a living artist.

But what does it mean for the art world, especially in the Indian context.

So, let's talk about the relevance and scope of digital art, algorithms and NFTs with Baiju Parthan, Harshit Agrawal and Shovin Bhattacharjee, All 3 are extremely well known, inter-media artists who have been in the digital space and technology art for years, and who understand blockchain, cryptoart, artificial Intelligence and NFTs.

Some of the points we hope to cover are with regards to digital art production, what does originality and criticality of the image imply today, the role of technology then in the art making and distribution, what does digital ownership mean and are there any environmental implications of blockchain technology.

Let’s just start this conversation and see how much ground we can cover in this first session.

Join us here WICCI Arts Leadership Council | Facebook on 31st March, 6 pm IST

                                

Meet our panel

Speakers

Baiju Parthan is a Mumbai based inter-media artist, working simultaneously with traditional media of painting as well as new media and digital technology based installation art. He is one of the early exponents of new media art and mediatic-realism in the Indian contemporary art scene. His work explores worldviews and ideologies that are in collision and the resulting ontological fallout felt and lived by all of us.

His work in the digital realm consists mainly of explorations into the mutating boundary where the virtual and real bleed into each other. Through a range of computer generated virtual objects presented as video installations, large scale prints on metallic surfaces, and 3D lenticular prints, Parthan manages to present a critique on high technology and its impact on our life and experience of reality.

He has participated in several landmark exhibitions including, New Interventions in Indian Art, China Art Museum Shanghai & Gaungdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China 2015, INDIA!, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB), Rio de Janeiro 2012, Indian Contemporary, Benedictine Museum, Fecamp, France, 2009, Beyond Globalization, Beijing, 2009, 101 Contemporary, Tokyo, 2008, International Live Art Festival Glasgow 2004, Kapital and Karma, Kunsthalle Wien, Austria 2002, and has shown at several important art fairs.

 

Harshit Agrawal is an artist working with artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. He is India’s first artificial intelligence artist, being the only Indian artist among 7 international AI art pioneers in the world’s first A.I art show in a contemporary gallery (Gradient Descent at Nature Morte). In his practice, he uses machines and algorithms and often creates them as an essential part of his art process, embracing becoming the cyborg artist. Harshit’s work is part of the permanent exhibition at the largest computer science museum in the world, HNF museum in Germany. He has exhibited work at other premier museums, galleries and art festivals around the world, like the Ars Electronica Festival (Austria), Asia Culture Center (Gwangju Korea), CADAF Contemporary and Digital Art Fair, HIRESOLUTION Exhibition for New Year’s Ball Drop at Times Square (USA), Museum of Tomorrow (Brazil), among others. He has given several talks at the subject of A.I and Art, including 3 TEDx talks. His work has also been extensively covered in international media, including BBC, New York Times, Artnet, Artsy, STIR World. Harshit has carried out residencies at the Museum of Tomorrow (Brazil), Art Center Nabi (Korea) and X-Lab (Japan). He graduated from the MIT Media Lab and IIT Guwahati. Along with his art practice, he has authored several publications and patents about his work at the intersection of human computer interaction and creative expression. He currently lives and works out of Bangalore, India.

 

 

Shovin Bhattacharjee is an artist working with painting, sculpture, digital art, new media art and public art installation. A pioneering digital artist, he is India’s first artist entering into an NFT art auction.

Born and brought up in Shillong (Meghalaya), he received his BFA and MFA degree in fine arts from Assam University, Silchar, and a diploma in conservation techniques from NRLC, Lucknow in 2002. Shovin has held seven solo shows with the Indian Cultural Centre Seoul, South Korea, in collaboration with Indian Art Museum at Seoul, South Korea.

He has also participated in National and International Exhibitions like “Spirit of India” Embassy of India, Lisbon in association with Art Catto Gallery at Conrad Hotel, Algrave, Portugal; 1st Digital Art Biennial, Brazil; Guanlan International print Biennial, China, India-Korea Art Exchange exhibition at Korean Cultural Center, New Delhi; “HANJI FESTIVAL” exhibition at Korean Cultural Center, New Delhi. 13th Asian Art Biennale organized by The Bangladesh Shilpa kala Academy, Dhaka, Bangladesh; 6th 7th and 8th International print Biennale organized by Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal; “Icon of Asia” International show at EM Art Gallery, Beijing, China; International print Biennale, Finland; Harmony Art shows organized by Harmony Art Foundation, Mumbai; All India Digital Art Exhibition, A.I.F.A.C.S., New Delhi; etc.

Shovin’s work is part of the permanent collection at the Indian Art Museum, Seoul, South Korea, CICA museum, South Korea; Lalit kala Akademi, New Delhi; National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; Manipur Museum, Meghalaya State museum. Indian Cultural Centre, Seoul, South Korea; Art Catto, Portugal; He currently lives and works in New Delhi, India.


Moderator

Nalini S Malaviya is a Bangalore based art consultant, curator and writer. She curates contemporary art exhibitions, working with visual artists from across the country and offers curatorial and advisory services to individuals and corporate. She has been writing for the media since 2003, and has been an art columnist for Bangalore Mirror and has contributed to Financial Times (Delhi and Bangalore) and Times of India, Deccan Herald, several art magazines and artist books. She has written and presented papers for the Karnataka Lalithkala Academy Journal and several of her prefatory essays have been published as part of artist catalogues.

Some of her curatorial projects include ‘Convergence,’ an online exhibition as part of an art and media collective, ‘Bend’ an exhibition of sculptures, ‘Parallax of Visual Memories’, ‘Reimagining: (Un)Reality and Space’, 'Irreverent Gene' and ‘Polynomials of Relevance’.

Nalini is the Founder/Publisher of 'Art Scene India' www.artsceneindia.com, a popular blog cum Ezine featuring art news, events and articles on art, and is a resource center for artists and connoisseurs. Currently, she has a fortnightly art column for Sunday Herald, and is Member, Advisory Committee, National Gallery of Modern Art, Bangalore. She is also the Karnataka President for Arts Leadership Council, Women’s Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

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Art News: Artist Shubigi Rao to curate Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2020

Singapore-based India-born artist Shubigi Rao to curate Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2020

Singapore-based Indian-origin artist and writer Shubigi Rao, a compulsive archivist and visual artist known for her complex and layered installations, has been named the curator of the fifth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) that begins on December 12, 2020.

The selection committee, which made the announcement in Venice on Thursday, unanimously decided to appoint Rao for her “exceptional acumens and inventive sensibilities” to curate the upcoming biennale.

The appointment is in keeping with the tradition of an artist helming the contemporary art festival that debuted in 2012. 

Artist Shubigi Rao, Curator, Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2020

Mumbai-born Rao, whose work featured in the fourth edition of the KMB (2018), is also a writer and her myriad interests include archaeology, neuroscience, libraries, archival systems, histories, literature, violence, acts of cultural genocide, anti-censorship, migratory patterns, ecology and natural history.

The decision to choose Rao, 43, was announced at Istituto Europeo di Design, Palazzo Franchetti in Venice—the Italian city that hosted the world’s first biennale (in 1895). The announcement came after lengthy deliberations within a search committee comprising Amrita Jhaveri, Gayatri Sinha, Jitish Kallat, Sunita Choraria and Tasneem Mehta, besides Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) trustees Alex Kuruvilla, Bose Krishnamachari and V Sunil.

Rao expressed happiness about her appointment. “Biennales are sometimes floating cities that are unmoored from their locality/regionality. Kochi-Muziris Biennale is rooted in the intertwined histories and cultural multiplicities of Kochi, while providing a crucial platform for larger discourse of the critical, political, and social in artistic practices,” she said. “To shift the lens through which we read the spectacle of exhibition, we must reposition discourse and practice through acknowledging intersecting contexts. I believe it is possible for the Biennale to retain regional realities and histories through cementing existing affinities and establishing new commons.”

Krishnamachari, who is a co-founder of the 2010-instituted KBF, described Rao as a “brilliant and original” artist. “Responding to the Foundation’s interest in selecting a young curator with varied interests, the section committee chose Rao for her exceptional talent,” he noted.

Secretary Sunil described Rao as a multi-faceted artist with interests in a range of subjects. “We look forward to another exciting edition of the Biennale under her curatorship,” he added.

Besides featuring in the fourth edition of the KMB, Rao participated in the 10th Taipei Biennial (2016), 3rd Pune Biennale (2017), the 2nd Singapore Biennale (2008) and the Singapore Writers Festival (2016, 2013). She was also selected for residency programmes in Singapore, Germany and India.

Since 2014 Shubigi has been visiting public and private collections, libraries and archives globally for Pulp: A Short Biography of the Banished Book, a decade-long film, book and visual art project about the history of book destruction. The first portion of the project, Written in the Margins, won the Juror’s Choice Award at the APB Signature Prize 2018. The first volume from the project was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize 2018. The project has two of its proposed five volumes released.

*Press release

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To contribute articles, please get in touch at artsceneinfo@gmail.com

Also read, 

• 5 Reasons a Good Catalogue Text is Essential for Your Art
• How To Write An Artist Statement
• 6 Tips On How To Approach An Art Gallery And Find Gallery Representation
• Exhibiting Art in Non-Gallery Spaces
• Guide To Exhibiting Your Artworks
• How to Create an Online Presence