HYBRID – Arts in the Digital Age

HYBRID Biennale 20. – 30.10.2022

Hardly any other phenomenon is currently changing the arts as fundamentally as digitalization – with the help of immersive technology, AI and algorithmic processes, not only new aesthetics are emerging, but also new formats, power structures, visibilities and presences of art. HYBRID Biennale, a new festival series on art in the digital age, will focus on the notion of the hybrid in its technological as well as political and social dimensions, in the principle of kinship, encounters and differences, and the potentials of diversity in various performative, installative and musical projects from October 20-30, 2022 at HELLERAU.

HYBRID pre-shows from 10-12 March presented the first themes of the Biennale, including positions by Julian Charrière, Shiva Feshareki and Tai Shani as well as current projects by EXONEMO, Artificial Museum, THE CONSTITUTE and PYLON.

As an opening event, the “Future Workshop – Art in the Periphery?” was held on 10 March in cooperation with the Landesverband Bildende Kunst Sachsen and the Saxon State Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and will highlight the potential and perspectives of art in the regions as well as questions of visibility and presence in the digital age in talks and discussions.

 

At the beginning of the 20th century, HELLERAU was founded as a joint project of industry, research and art and as a response to industrialisation and changes in working and living conditions. More than 100 years later, a new international platform, a laboratory, experimental and discursive space for the arts in the digital age and critical phases of global transformation processes is being established at HELLERAU with HYBRID.

For the launch of HYBRID, a joint festival of digital art and electronic music was presented for the first time in cooperation with MUTEK: HYBRID – CUTTING EDGE CANADA. Originally, this event was planned for March 2020, but due to circumstances it could only take place in 2021 and almost exclusively online. For four days, from March 11-14, 2021, thousands of international online guests attended audiovisual performances on virtual stages, NEW NATURE and other projects in an interactive gallery, listening rooms, and a virtual after-show party in objekt klein a.

Also since March 2021, HYBRID Box is another new project in HELLERAU: In cooperation with PYLON and GRAFT Architects, HYBRID Box will present experimental and interdisciplinary art in the digital age by local and international artists as a new modular gallery in front of the Festspielhaus Hellerau and at the same time accompanying the beginning reconstruction of the original east wing of the barracks. 

In October 2022, HELLERAU will host the new international festival HYBRID Biennale for the first time. Based on HELLERAU as a free space in which artistic forms of expression can always be developed in new and speculative ways, HYBRID Biennale builds bridges between “analog” and “digital” or even performing and visual arts. The concept of the hybrid is to be developed not only in its technological, but also in its political and social dimensions, in the principle of kinship, encounters and differences, and the potentials of diversity.

HYBRID box is a project in cooperation with HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts and PYLON, powered by GRAFT. Funded within the framework of the Alliance of International Production Houses by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

HYBRID biennale is supported by the Federal Cultural Foundation and the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony. This measure is co-financed by tax funds on the basis of the budget passed by the Saxon State Parliament.