LABoral joins the European Digital Art and Science network, a transnational Art, Science project
The Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial multiplies its artistic production grants in 2015
The logo of the transnational European Digital Art and Science Network
LABoral will consolidate in 2015 its presence in Europe with its incorporation into a transnational Art, Science and Technology research project, the European Digital Art and Science Network, founded by the European Union. LABoral is the only art centre or museum in Spain that will receive community funds through the first phase of the programme Creative Europe. This initiative is also joined by seven other European artistic institutions and two scientific ones, CERN and ESO.
The programme lines of the activity of the Art Centre for the next year have been approved in a meeting of the Board of Trustees of Fundación La Laboral, the governing body of the institution, held this Friday and chaired by its President and Regional Minister for Education, Culture and Sports of the Principality of Asturias, Ana González.
Furthermore, the Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial de Gijón will reinforce the lines of production, research and dissemination during the next year multiplying its artistic production grants. In addition it will reinforce its national and international projection and its working networks with the developments of several joint projects and alliances with artistic and cultural institutions from Spain and abroad.
From its opening, in March 2007, LABoral has been an interdisciplinary space that supports the artistic exchange and fosters the relationship between art, science, technology, society and the creative industries, with a specific focus on the artistic research, technological culture, production, training, exhibition and dissemination of art in our time.
European Digital Art and Science Network
The incorporation of the Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial de Gijón into the European Digital Art and Science Network consolidates this line of work by taking part, as partner, in a cross-border research project aimed at fostering the collaboration between artists and scientists under the principles of interdisciplinarity, European intercultural exchange and the development of new audiences.
Partners:
- Two scientific institutions, as mentors, the CERN, Switzerland, ESO (European Southern Observatory), Chile
- Eight European cultural entities: LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial; Ars Electronica, Linz; the Center for the Promotion of Science, Serbia; DIG Gallery, Slovakia; Science Gallery, at Trinity College, Dublin; Fundación Zaragoza Ciudad del Conocimiento, Spain; Zavod K6/4, Slovenia; and GV Art, London.
The framework:
The European Union has selected this large-scale project, in its programme Creative Europe that allocates 1.460 million euros for strengthening cross-border cooperation among cultural and creative industries in Europe during the period 2014-2020.
The European Digital Art and Science Network, integrated by LABoral, will receive a total funding of 1.100.000 euros, out of which 362.000 will be allocated for the development of activities at the Centro de Arte de Gijón along the following three years. Among the 21 projects selected by the EU, LABoral is the only Spanish art centre receiving European funding in this programme.
Activities:
The European Digital Art and Science Network includes calls for residencies at Ars Electronica FutureLab and the scientific entities –CERN and ESO-, the production and curatorship of roaming exhibitions and the organisation of a series of network activities among all the partners.
The engineering and science, generated at the scientific institutions (like CERN or ESO), will be a source of inspiration for the development of artistic projects. During the three years of this project 13 exhibitions, 8 workshops and 9 conferences or seminars will take place.
At LABoral in 2015:
- Alma Matters (preliminary title), this show is aimed at exhibiting projects half way between art, science and technology that share a will to eliminate the borders between the social and the natural.
Co-production: Ars Electronica Future Lab (Austria), CERN (Switzerland), ESO (Chile)
Date: December 2015 - March 2016
Venue: Exhibition Gallery. Hall 1
- Performativity Matters, a conference on art, science and technology in the context of the emergence of new contemporary materialisms. From the academic circles of the STS (Science, Technology and Society), to the post-feminist thinking and quantic physics, science as an institution is currently subject to a fundamental revolution in its principles that takes it beyond the modern paradigm. Performativity Matters aims to stablish itself as a new international meeting point for scientists, artists and technologists that breaks the currently existing borders between academic research and independent research.
Co-production: Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain, and VIDA Concurso de Arte y Vida Artificial, Spain
- LABoratorio de Ciencia. A Space for biological research and the transfer of knowledge and ways of doing between science and artistic practices. It introduces artists and designers in the practice and knowledge of the laboratory. The aim is to foster the interest for science and establishing a relationship between the field of biology and social innovation. In addition to the implementation of the lab, there will be public presentations, dissemination activities and a Science DIY programme in the classroom.
Production calls are tripled
LABoral will triple in 2015 the number of production residencies where artists and developers are invited to produce new works that will later be shown to the public in presentations and workshops where creators will show the result of their work.
Two calls will continue next year, the Production Grant DKV Seguros – Álvarez Margaride, Next Things, a research grant in partnership with Telefónica I+D, and Traslaciones, an initiative fostered by Fundación Municipal de Cultura, Educación y Universidad Popular del Ayuntamiento de Gijón and LABoral, aimed at opening a communication channel between a city of the Atlantic Arc and Gijón.
New calls
- LABjoven_Experimenta is the most deeply rooted programme of the Art Centre, both in terms of seniority -2013 was its seventh call-, and also based on its direct link with the local culture. It is aimed at producing experimental art projects by artists born or residing in Asturias and it is designed as a specific programme for supporting and energizing the Asturian scene. LABoral brings back this call with te support of the Cantabrian collector Jaime Sordo, President of the Association of Contemporary Art Private Collectors 9915 and owner of the collection Los Bragales, that includes a wide selection of works acquired over a 45 years period.
Date: 16 September – 13 December 2015
- Ciencias del Mar. Promoted by the Port Authority of Gijón, it is a call offering a production grant for selecting an artist that develops a project related with the sea-port environment. After his production residency at LABoral, the resulting work will be shown at the Exhibition Hall of the Old Fish Market of Gijón.
- Mecenazgo Expandido, an inedit model, directed by Alicia Ventura, that is presented as a new paradigm in the field of fostering artistic creation and cultural funding in public spaces.
The calls programmed for 2015 are the following:
- Colección olorVISUAL. In partnership with colección olorVISUAL, LABoral will announce the second call for the production of a work by an artist under 40, for developing an artistic project in the intersection between art, science and technology.
- Production Grant Fundación RAC. Héctor Zamora. The Mexican artist Héctor Zamora will develop a production residency at LABoral where he will work on a specific project funded by Fundación RAC (Rosón Arte Contemporáneo). This institution, headquartered in Pontevedra, is aimed at supporting art and culture through the production of projects and activities that encourage artistic creation and dissemination at regional, national and international level.
- Educational Tools Production Grant. A group of collectors, so far joined by Natalia Yera, José María Civit, Bárbara de Rueda, Carlos Puerta, Julián Castilla and Alicia Ventura, will contribute in the funding of the Educational Tools Production Grant. A public call will select a project for the development of an educational tool based on the artistic creation process as a teaching methodology that fosters critical thinking and imagination.
Consolidation of networking and national and international projection
LABoral will consolidate its national and international projection through networking and partnerships with other institutions for developing projects.
In the case of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and Fundación La Caixa, with whom LABoral will produce the exhibition Val del Omar: La mecánica mística del cine, that will showcase the work of one of the most original and obscure filmmakers of our country, who understood cinema as a total art and who based his filmmaking in the most avant-garde experimentation. The exhibition will be also shown at the CGAC in Santiago de Compostela and at MEIAC in Badajoz.
LABoral will collaborate with the Mexican Laboratorio Arte Alameda and Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo (MEIAC) from Badajoz in the exhibition (Ready) Media. Hacia una arqueología de los medios y la invención en México, that offers a critical interpretation of the visual archives gathered over the ten years of existence of the Laboratorio Arte Alameda from Mexico City.
Moreover, a production residency will be announced and the resulting work will be showcased in collaboration with Avatar, sound art and electronics center from Quebec.
The Director of Hexagram Concordia Centre for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Technology, Canada, Chris Salter, will be the curator of Performa(c)ciones, an exhibition focusing on the emergence of new concepts of performativity that is taking place in the XXIst century. The show’s collaborating curator is Marti Menen and analyses performativity from different perspectives such as social, natural science, economy, design, urban development or literature. This is done with the works of highly-regarded and prestigious artists and collectives, like the popular playwright William Forsythe, the influential laboratory pioneer in biological SymbioticA or the renowned art, science and technology platform Liquid Things, among others.
Other lines of activity
The Educational programme of LABoral will further develop the two existing lines of work: AuLAB, school programme on the use of new technologies as elements for educational innovation and creation of contexts for alternative learning, and the Training programme on tools for creators and other professionals at the Production Centre, which is based on the interaction among the different labs of LABoral and the research lines developed by the Art Centre, both in fabLAB Asturias, and the Sound LAB.
From the Production Centre, the Sound LAB will continue developing research and production residencies, exhibitions, workshops, concerts or performances related with experimentation in the different practices of contemporary sound art.
