KIBLIX 2024 | Panel discussion: Metaverse Realities | Art, Semiocapitalism, and the New Lords

Panel discussion: Metaverse Realities | Art, Semiocapitalism, and the New Lords
hybrid, phygital event
Thursday, 21 November 2024, at 6 p.m.
MMC KIBLA

On Thursday, 21 November 2024, at 6 p.m., we invite you to MMC KIBLA for a hybrid phygital panel discussion, which will address the metaverse partly in physical and partly in digital form - via a web link we will meet the guests in the physical space of MMC KIBLA, where you will also be able to ask them questions.

Presenters: Tanja Vujinović, artist; Ziyang Wu + Mark Ramos, artists; Nikola Popović (Frasha Boa, Abiss Design) - pioneering virtual architecture in Second Life

Moderator: Maja Ćirić, independent curator & art critic

While not as 'hot' as it was two years ago, the Metaverse remains an important artistic subgenre, engaging both embedded communities and providing commentary on society within the context of physical art institutions. What is the political reality of the Metaverse, as both a site of potential and a site of exploitation, in this age of technological domination? If we are living in our Techno-Feudal Tomorrow (William Kherbek)—a dystopian future shaped by technology and corporate power, where the past is reimagined through a tech-driven twist, with powerful corporations holding dominion over individuals—where do the new lords, digital serfs, and fragmented autonomy stand within the Metaverse?

Between terrifying tales and speculative fairytales, we will bridge the gaps in understanding reality at the intersection of art and technology in the Metaverse. Semiocapitalism, a concept in contemporary critical theory, refers to the economic exploitation and extraction of value from signs, symbols, and cultural meaning—essentially, the commodification of personal data, attention, and emotional labor. What role does semiocapitalism play in shaping the Metaverse, and how does it affect our relationship to art and digital culture?

Tanja Vujinović is a Ljubljana-based artist working in new media and sound, creating immersive audio-visual artworks, virtual worlds, ambient soundscapes, and energetic techno tracks. Known for her digital art practice, multi-channel video installations, and generative works, she explores the complex, emergent ecologies of imagined fractal astrobiological worlds inhabited by biomimetic proto-machines and futuristic avatar agents. Since the late 90s, her work has been exhibited in institutions, galleries, and festivals worldwide. These imagined realms are often presented as multi-channel videos or computer-generated interactive experiences, from interactive desktop applications to virtual reality installations.

Ziyang Wu is an artist, curator and teacher based in New York and Hangzhou. His work examines how the virtual world, data and algorithms as invisible forces ubiquitously alienate and reconstruct human experience in a globalized post-Internet society. His work has been shown at M+ (Hong Kong), the 7th Intermedia Art Festival (Shanghai), Nancy Margolis Gallery (New York), Hatch Art Project (Singapore), the Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), Rhizome at the New Museum (New York), the Walker Art Center (Mineapolis), UCCA Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing) and the Chengdu Biennale. Ziyang Wu is a member of NEW INC at the New Museum in New York.

Mark Ramos is a Brooklyn-based new media artist. Mark has exhibited his work and lectured widely both online and AFK including as part of Rhizome's First Look: New Art Online with the New Museum of Contemporary Art in NYC, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Long March Space in Beijing, M+ Museum in Hong Kong, HEK-Basel, Switzerland (Haus der Elektronischen Künste), Arebyte Gallery in London, and at the Peter Weibel Institute for Digital Culture in Vienna.
He teaches Art after the Internet in the MFA Fine Arts Department at the School of Visual Arts, Form and Code at Pratt Institute, as well as Web Programming and Computer Principles in the Computer Science Department at NYU.
You can also find him playing drums for various bands in Brooklyn.

Frasha Boa is a virtual designer and co-founder of Abiss Design, a store within the online platform Second Life. Along with collaborator Oggy Bonetto, Frasha Boa has been crafting detailed and highly realistic virtual environments since 2007. Their work primarily focuses on creating prefabricated homes, skyboxes, and furnishings for users to enhance their virtual spaces in Second Life, aiming to provide an immersive and stylish experience.
Abiss Design offers items ranging from animated furniture, pool and hot tub features, to customizable home décor with high-detail textures. They emphasize quality and customer care, frequently updating their catalog with new designs that cater to various aesthetics and interactive element.

Maja Ćirić, PhD, is an independent yet inseparable curator and art critic. Her primary field of interest, the geopolitics of the curatorial, shifted to the multipolar geopolitics of planetary computation following the digital turn in 2020.Maja served as the curator of the Serbian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007 and as the commissioner in 2013. She also curated the BJCEM Mediterranea Young Artist Biennale in Tirana, Albania, in 2017, and the 20th Pančevo Art Bienniale in Pančevo, Serbia, in 2022. She wrote for FlashArt, Obieg, Artforum, Artmargins Online, Arts of the Working Class, springerin, Third Text, Passe-Avant among others. Maja has received the ISCP Curator Award, the Dedalus Foundation Curatorial Research Award, the Lazar Trifunović Award, the ArtsLink Independent Projects Award, and the Visual Artists Ireland Curatorial Research Award.

< Tanja Vujinović: RoboSense3, audio-visual work, 4x5 4K, 9:59 min, 2024, still image