FABRICA AT CAFA ART MUSEUM IN BEIJING - 19Oct/21Nov 2010

Fabrica, October 2010. Two interactive installations by Fabrica will be hosted at CAFA Art Museum in Beijing within the exhibition of the V&A Museum “Decode: Digital Design Sensations”. The exhibition, launched last December, offers a major survey of the best contemporary digital art and design from around the world, and, following the public and critical acclaim obtained in London, it has started a worldwide tour with CAFA as first stop, from 19th October to 21st November. Decode is an exhibition curated by the V&A and the leading digital arts organization onedotzero.

Venetian Mirror is a large scale interactive installation blending contemporary digital technology with traditional Venetian glass. When the visitor walks up to the installation, their image doesn’t immediately appear in the mirror. Only if they keep very still, will the reflection slowly appear, like a photograph being developed. The combination of high tech and traditional design invites the audience to reflect on the duality of new and old, and the mystery of time itself. It is an interactive piece which engages the sense of proprioceptivity - the sense of oneself and one’s body, in the here-and-now. The cut of the glass pieces resemble a broken mirror - an allusion to the fragility of time. Venetian Mirror is by Andy Cameron and Sam Baron with Oriol Ferrer Mesia, Goncalo Campos and Dave Towey.

Exquisite Clock is a clock made of numbers taken from everyday life – seen, captured and uploaded by people from all over the world. Built around an online database, the clock exists as a web 2.0 website, an iPhone application and as a series of site specific installations. The V&A Exquisite Clock is a hanging sculpture of deconstructed computers, screens and cables which visitors are invited to contribute to and interact with. Exquisite Clock is by Joao Wilbert. iPhone development is by Steven Baughman.

The inclusion of Venetian Mirror and Exquisite Clock in this major exhibition is the recognition of Fabrica’s role in exploring new approaches to the creative use of technology, and puts the research centre firmly at the centre of the most exciting, innovative and creative developments taking place in the arts and design today.

The Chinese exhibition of Decode offers an opportunity to reaffirm the special interest Fabrica has always shown towards China, as demonstrated by many projects developed over the years, from the co-production of the film Seventeen Years by filmmaker Zhang Yuan (Silver Lion for Best Director at Venice International Film Festival 1999) to issues of COLORS which, in the magazine’s typical non-conventional style, have dealt with the subjects of daily life in the Chinese capital (COLORS 70 Beijing) and, on the eve of the Beijing Olympic Games, launched a message of peace and hope, with the publication of prayers written by 30 Tibetan monks for the victims of China’s Sichuan earthquake. In addition to this, a Chinese edition of COLORS issue 72 was also published, in co-operation with Today Art Museum and China Publishing House. Also worth a mention are the many exhibitions that have created an ideal bridge between the research centre on communication and Chinese culture. These have included REMOTE/CONTROL at MoCA Shanghai (2007), in which Fabrica participated with the interactive art installation Piacere Fabrica, conceived as an opportunity for international and local artists to meet and mingle; Les Yeux Ouverts at the Shanghai Art Museum (2007), which offered an overview of the variegated research activity done at Fabrica; and Secrets of the Forbidden City – Matteo Ricci at the Ming Court (2009), an exhibition curated by Fabrica and organized in Treviso, Italy, about this magnificent dynasty. This last event was part of a series of three exhibitions described by the National Directorate of Chinese Museums as “the most significant window on Chinese culture ever opened in the Western world”.

Fabrica is the Benetton Group’s creative laboratory, which invites young artists/designers from around the world to spend a year at the research centre based in Treviso, where they can acquire further expertise. They are offered a wealth of resources and contacts, and expert guidance, enabling them to develop cultural and social communication projects in the fields of interaction, design, visual communication, photography, video, music and publishing.

Editors Notes

Decode: Digital Design Sensations will show the latest developments in digital and interactive design, from small screen based graphics to large-scale installations. There will be works by established international artists and designers including Daniel Brown and Daniel Rozin as well as emerging designers such as Troika and Simon Heijdens. Decode: Digital Design Sensations is in partnership with SAP.

The V&A is the world’s greatest museum of art and design with collections unrivalled in their scope and diversity. It was established to make works of art available to all and to inspire British designers and manufacturers. Today, the V&A’s collections which span over 2000 years of human creativity in virtually every medium and from many parts of the world, continue to intrigue, inspire and inform.

 

For more information:
Fabrica Press Office
+39-0422-516272
mliverot@benetton.it
www.fabrica.it

 

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