new media installations & performance by Cristina Bodnărescu, hosted by The Youth House in Timișoara,
27-30 Nov 2023
Digital Capsule of Heaven and (E)art(h) is an exhibition concept that unites two new media artworks created by Cristina Bodnărescu, namely Digital Heaven (2022), and Imagined Critters (2022), which explore the impact of technology on reshaping human identity and our perception of the surrounding world, including non-human life.
Digital Capsule of Heaven and (E)art(h) symbolically represents the interconnectedness of our relationship with the natural world (Earth) and the digital realm (Heaven). The Earth, as the cradle of our physicality, is mirrored in the digital realm—a space that, despite its intangibility, mirrors, augments, and extends our experiences. The exhibition becomes a medium through which the audience is encouraged to reconsider the dichotomies that traditionally define our understanding of existence.
Digital Heaven (2022) is a work with two components - a choreographic performance with interactive technologies, and an interactive installation created by Cristina Bodnărescu with dance and performance by Oana Băluță after a choreography by Anamaria Guguian and music by Ethics of Joy (Cristina Bodnărescu & George Urse).
The performance uses technologies such as gesture recognition, motion sensors and video projections mapped on the performer's body, to bring to a poetic light the positioning of the technologically mediated posthuman body in a world where the boundaries between real and virtual are becoming more fluid.
The dancer and her digital double explore new forms of communication and expression, emerging at the convergence of these two spaces. The human body undergoes physical augmentations and transformations, vividly portrayed through the body-mapped projections, while the digital double, as a form of artificial intelligence, learns and develops based on its analogue counterpart until it appears to achieve self-awareness.
Above are photos taken from the performance, which was followed by a QA with the audience and the artists Cristina Bodnărescu and Oana Băluță.
Stepping into Digital Heaven
The interactive projection Digital Heaven taken from the homonymous show, provides a space for self-discovery in an interactive and personalized digital universe, shaped by the free movements of each participant.
Coming back on Earth. Or is it Earth?
Imagined Critters (2022), an interactive installation created by Cristina Bodnărescu and George Urse, which form the duo Ethics of Joy, discusses the possibility of artificial intelligence becoming conscious. Here technology is assigned a degree of agency. In this imagined universe, communication with non-human virtual entities is possible through human made gestures and brings to the fore essential questions about the nature of human empathy.
See how it went:
This artistic creation was produced with the support of an Energie! Creative Grant awarded by the Municipality of Timișoara, through the Center for Projects, within the Power Station component of the National Cultural Programme "Timișoara – European Capital of Culture in the year 2023".
The material does not necessarily represent the position of the Center for Projects and the latter is not responsible for its content or how it may be used.
The material does not necessarily represent the position of the Center for Projects and the latter is not responsible for its content or how it may be used.
