From 9 to 13 September, Belval will be the setting for the Ars Electronica Esch2022 Luxembourg Garden. This interactive multimedia experience is presented by Esch2022 – European Capital of Culture as part of the Ars Electronica 2020, Europe’s largest festival for art, technology and society and will explore the past, present and possible future of Belval.
The event in Belval is based on an idea from Daniel Karpati from the Faculty of Science, Technolgy and Medicine at the University of Luxembourg. A media installation connects visitors in Belval and in the Austrian city of Linz (where Ars Electronica is headquartered), across real and virtual spaces in an immersive experience inspired by the aesthetics and control functions of video games.
In Haut Fourneau A in Belval, a performer equipped with GoPro cameras is remotely controlled by festival visitors in Linz enabling them to explore sections of the former blast furnace and encounter a number of sculptures and installations by visual artist Mary-Audrey Ramirez. The public in Luxembourg can witness these remote interactions while visiting the exhibition on the former casting platform (Plancher des Coulées) freely.
These interactions are streamed live online and on multiple screens installed on site as well as at “Annexe22” – Place de la Résistance in Esch-sur-Alzette.
The live sessions in Belval correspond to “slots” in Linz and are as follows:
Wednesday
09.09.2020: 11.00 – 12.00 and 15.00 – 16.00
Thursday
10.09.2020: 11.00 – 12.00 and 15.00 – 16.00
Friday
11.09.2020: 11.00 – 12.00 and 15.00 – 16.00
Saturday
12.09.2020: 11.00 – 12.00 and 15.00 – 16.00
Sunday
13.09.2020: 11.00 – 12.00 and 15.00 – 16.00
Installation de Mary Audey Ramirez
About Esch2022 – European Capital of Culture
A European Capital of Culture is a city designated by the European Union (EU) for a period of one calendar year during which it organises a series of cultural events with a strong pan-European dimension. In 2022, together with 10 municipalities in Luxembourg and 8 municipalities in France, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg’s second largest city, will be European Capital of Culture. Under the slogan REMIX CULTURE and its four sub-sections REMIX ART, REMIX EUROPE, REMIX NATURE and REMIX YOURSELF, Esch2022 aims to create synergies, guarantee sustainable development and, most importantly, ensure that the general public gets actively involved.
Website: esch2022.lu
About Ars Electronica
Ars Electronica is Europe’s largest festival for art, technology and society. Adapting to a post-Covid situation, the 2020 edition is designed to be a global journey mapping the ‘new’ world, in Linz and 120 other locations worldwide. In the course of this journey, the important questions of our time will be discussed, questions raised by the global corona crisis, and what we can and must do now will be considered. All the issues touched upon are marked by a general UNCERTAINTY and the question of how the crisis will shape and change us as individuals and as a society, us as HUMANITY. Two tensions in particular are in focus: AUTONOMY and DEMOCRACY as well as TECHNOLOGY and ECOLOGY.
Website: ars.electronica.art
About Mary-Audrey Ramirez
Translating the fantasy worlds of gaming culture into artistic explorations, Mary-Audrey Ramirez (b. 1990, Luxembourg, lives and works in Berlin) constructs a world of soft sculpture creatures, an animal kingdom reflecting our own human needs, projections and desires. As part of the journey through the former blast furnaces her sculptures appear as disruptive interludes contributing to further blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, the physical and the digital space.
Recent exhibitions include Dortmunder Kunstverein, Dortmund (2020), Overbeck-Gesellschaft, Lübeck (2019), Galerie Martinetz, Cologne (2015, 2017, 2019). Group show include Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2017), Tropez, Berlin (2017) Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin (2017), Haus Mödrath, Herpen (2017), KAI10, Düsseldorf (2017), SVIT, Prague (2017). She is a recipient of the Edward Steichen Award Luxembourg (2019), the TAKIFUJI Arts Award (2014) and the Ulrich and Burga Knispel Foundation Award (2015). She has been short-listed for the Robert Schuman Prize (2018) and was a resident of the Federal Chancellery of Austria, Vienna (2017).