Welcome to the Unrestricted ([<-U->]). The [<-U->] exhibition project ventures beyond the constraints of physical reality into the unknown, (anathema-driven) spaces of techno-alchemic practice. The exploration of these U spaces, full of potential for new artistic creation, propels the audience into an era of art marked by boundless potentiality.
The heart of the [<-U->] philosophy is to embrace a new existence where physical and digital realms merge and where the aesthetic goal is not predefined or predetermined. It invites audiences to embark on a psycho-immersive journey between virtual social noetic and physical spaces to explore the evolution of identities and realities
For its physical manifestation the exhibition is placed in Shanghai (2^6) and in two venues in France. The manifestations in the physical space will be uploaded during the events as photos and live streams.
The metaphysical U space is a post interaction manifestation of subjective events. This can only exist after the carriers of a modality the metaphysical experience manifested it. It is a projection via physical or virtual forms of the metaphysical event. To access the link to the metaphysical cyberspace you need to have access to an entity with a cybernetic tattoo.
The Gitch Residency @Fey is a magnet for the rhizomatic emergence of ideas projects concepts events and memories. This event is pivotal in the reframing of the U Glitch Space also available in a Metaversial link.
Iannis Bardakos, an artist and scholar from Athens, Greece, blends technology, art, and philosophy. He's worked in applied and fine digital/virtual/AI/Bio art and film for over 30 years, founding and managing media art and educational studios from Athens, Paris to Shanghai. His expertise spans mathematics, computer science, philosophy, film and the arts. Bardakos researches, teaches and leads research in Shanghai, focusing on technology's role in art and aesthetics. He's a Ph.D. from the School of fine arts of Athens and from Paris 8 University, he co-edits (member of the Editorial Organism) the Technoetic Arts Journal, and is a member at large of the American Society for Cybernetics. His work includes making art, curating art exhibitions and developing digital media projects across Europe and Asia.
Dr. Iannis Bardakos manifests in this exhibition as the Tautologos, a metaphysical techno-conjurer and philosopher, delves into the mystical realms of art and ontology, merging the arcane with the avant-garde. His journey, originating from Athens, Greece, has seen him immerse in the world of cybernetic ontologies, a metaphysicist seeking forms and non-localities. The Tautologos is a modern-day magus, a hunter-gatherer of aesthetic essences and intangible realities, traversing between the physical virtual and metaphysical planes.
Tautologos is a techno-alchemist, exploring the art, technology, and philosophy wit work in these studios transcends conventional artistic practices, delving into the realms of physical hyper/hybrid, and virtual media projects. He is a master of the theoretical and the practical aspects of art, guiding and being guided through the labyrinth of creative processes in both virtual and physical realms.
Gordon Berger is a pioneer of the Crypto Art movement. Since late 2011 he has been exploring the use of blockchain as an artistic medium, and its ever-evolving output in our contemporary world. In early 2018 he was the first TEDx speaker to give a talk on CryptoArt & NFTs at the Museum of London. The following year he held the first NFT solo-exhibition in New York and has been exhibiting Crypto Art internationally since then. Exploring the use of smart contracts as a medium, led him to be one of the earliest artists tokenizing on SuperRare in 2018 - minting 3 of the initial 100 tokens, and contributing to the earliest Generative Art Platform on the blockchain in 2018. Gordon also created the first NFTs ever materialized from digital into physical reality – The ‘Solidity’ & ‘Materiality’ Series (2018/19). Investigating concepts of value, materiality, and abstraction - these are the earliest Generative Art projects enabled by smart-contracts (pre-dating Autoglyphs). As a graduate of Central Saint Martins University in London, and The Belgrade School of Design, he has dedicated his career to creating art by blending digital and traditional painting techniques along with algorithms and AI. His art series focus on documenting the evolution of the Crypto Art movement, and the fusion of the physical and digital reality. Highlighting what it means to be human, in this important moment of cultural and technological transformation, through abstract art.
“Symbiosis with entropy and uncertainty to create.”
As a consummate artist rooted in entropy, a seasoned New Media director at Sokaris Studio, and a committed educator, I am ceaselessly enraptured by the myriad of self-organized systems that permeate our existence - from the intricate workings of nature to the labyrinthine interconnections within society and technology. I firmly hold that by surrendering to the whims of entropy and navigating the oftentimes bewildering landscape of uncertainty, we can birth art that triggers reflection and precipitates groundbreaking innovation.
My artistic voyage navigates through a diverse spectrum of media and methodologies, oscillating between large-scale installations commissioned by clients, to avant-garde, conceptual undertakings probing the edges of human comprehension. The purpose of my artistry is to unravel the clandestine linkages weaving seemingly unrelated objects and phenomena, thus prompting viewers to interrogate their preconceptions and perceive reality through fresh lenses.
As an indefatigable thinker and experimentalist, I relish the intellectual rigor of stretching the conceivable limits of the possible. Whether my work involves engaging with sophisticated machinery, delving into the nuanced realm of human emotion, or even a combination of both, I employ an acute attention to detail coupled with a daring spirit to engage the unanticipated. Each new project is embarked upon with a relentless pursuit for uniqueness, seeking to design experiences that leave an indelible, unforgettable imprint.
Whether it's an immersive installation, a novel digital work, an enthralling kinetic sculpture, or a manifestation of artificial life, my art carries a consistent theme. It invites viewers into a dialogue with the chaos and order inherent in all systems, a narrative thread that underpins all my creations regardless of their varied forms.
Born in Shanghai, China, in 1987, Junkai Chen is a multidisciplinary artist who oscillates between China and France, embodying a confluence of Eastern and Western aesthetics. He holds distinguished degrees from the Shanghai Institute of Visual Art and the esteemed Villa Arson in Nice, France. Further amplifying his credentials, he is also an alumnus of Le Fresnoy, the National Studio for Contemporary Arts in Tourcoing, France.
Junkai is not merely an artist but also an experimenter, serving as the test pilot for his own interactive musical installations. He becomes a visionary guide for future visitors, transforming each installation into a dynamic performance where minutiae take center stage. Utilizing audiovisual media as his canvas, he crafts immersive experiences that blur the lines between spectator and participant.
Constantly on the hunt for innovative musical instruments and visual setups, Junkai weaves narratives that are deeply personal yet universally resonant. His work is a tapestry of his own experiences interlaced with diverse cultural threads, making each piece a unique exploration of identity, space, and sound.
I was born and raised in Athens, Greece. I followed studies in journalism and later attended the Fine Arts Department of Cyprus University of Technology from 2019 until 2023. The works I have chosen for this exhibition touch on themes that I often revisit. My approach starts from the almost lived or almost visible, emphasizing emotion and presenting it as something dreamlike but also dystopian at the same time. My methodology also includes automation and abstraction. Automation is followed by associative symbolisms, and an attempt is made to map, without sequence, what we perceive and feel from the environment we live in. An abstract architectural conglomerate of memories that phenomenologically creates new possibilities of poetic expression through a virtual space, remaining timeless. I also explore ways in which structured environments can be used to evoke feelings of alienation and disconnection. The concepts of the independent artistic producer are intertwined with romanticism (poetry - vision), the supernatural (visions), symbolism, semiotics (myth), as well as phenomenology, supporting the autonomy of the work and the discovery of new knowledge through it.
Primavera is a legal scholar at Harvard University, as well as an Internet activist and artist exploring the intersection between law and technology, focusing specifically on the legal and political implications of blockchain technology.
Her artistic practice instantiates the key findings of her research in the physical world, creating blockchain-based lifeforms that evolve and reproduce themselves as people feed them with cryptocurrencies.
Her works have been exposed in various museums, galleries and art fairs around the world including Ars Electronica (Austria), HEK Museum of Digital Arts (Basel, Switzerland), Furtherfield Gallery and Kinetica Art Fair (UK), Centre Pompidou, Grand Palais, Gaité Lyrique, and Le Cent Quatre (France), Fort Mason Center For Arts & Culture (San Francisco), as well as festivals such as Burning Man (Nevada) and Fusion Festival (Germany), and online galleries like Feral File.
Meta Golova, or "metaphysical head", is the sound, art, and music duo formed in 2022 by the artists and musicians, Lena Kilina and Carlos Issa. The central idea of our sound art project is to reflect on current turbulent times- the wars and upcoming apocalypses via a variety of art and culture mediums- sound poetry, music, audio-visual art, advocating for cultural, social, ethnic, and gender, diversity.
Meta Golova's poetry is multilingual (from Russian to Chinese, Portuguese, English, and French), and the recent compositions are written mainly in Russian — the language of dissidents and refugees, and simultaneously perpetrators and predators. It invokes a discourse of power figures, deities, and commands being doubted & and debated. Challenging the culture of submission to circumstance, this audio envelope brings the audience to think about the tragic situation that all humanity is facing now with a hope and sense of will for the future transformation.
Meta Golova's artistic practice is also site-specific based on a music experiment where the experience of sound goes beyond moving within defined categories: it is about being present, listening, and making sound poetry, and the experience of them is a certain temporal sentimental music character.
Zhangying, an artist with a Bachelor of Painting and Printmaking from Central Academy of Fine Arts (2005), navigates complex terrains of new media and traditional art forms. Exhibitions range from the analytical "Depths of Experience in New Media and Installation Art" (Beijing, 2019) to the more lyrical "Breeze And The Man Made" at HongKun Museum (2020). With a series of accolades beginning as early as 2005 with the "Emerging Talent of Chengdu International Biennial Exhibition," Zhangying's work interrogates the dynamics of perception and space, merging the tactile and the abstract. A pivotal player in diverse exhibits such as the "Guanlan International Print Biennial" and "Multiple Impressions" at the University of Michigan, the artist's oeuvre manifests as a ceaseless inquiry into the liminal zones of visual culture.
As a software engineer specializing in decentralized web technologies and machine learning, I am deeply engaged in exploring innovative forms of collective interaction with AI systems and forward-thinking approaches to machine learning. My expertise lies in navigating the complex landscape of intercontinental machine code, operating as a kind of digital mercenary who traverses various technological frontiers.
My work centers around the creative utilization of AI in content production, particularly through techniques like remixing, mutating, and style influencing. This approach harnesses the vast potential of AI to generate content that is not only innovative but also reflective of complex network structures. I place a strong emphasis on taxonomies as visual tools to display the relational aspects of AI-generated content, believing that these network structures offer valuable insights into the interconnected nature of digital creations.
In my exploration of AI interfaces, I have come to view the network itself as a form of art. This perspective has opened up new avenues for considering AI content generation as a fundamentally social tool, ripe with possibilities for new mechanisms and creative expressions. My belief is that AI can transcend traditional boundaries of technology and art, offering a unique lens through which we can understand and shape our digital world.
Outside of my professional pursuits, I am an unpublished poet, finding solace and expression in the written word. This aspect of my life influences my technological work, infusing a sense of creativity and a different perspective into my approach to software engineering and AI. My journey through the realms of technology and poetry reflects a continuous quest for innovation, creativity, and a deeper understanding of the world around us.
Elhem Younes is a Tunisian-born visual artist based in Paris. With a background in Aesthetics, Science, and Arts Technologies, she explores the construction of meaning and perception in the digital age. Her immersive artworks, inspired by altered states of consciousness, prompt introspection on issues such as free will, memory, and interpersonal relationships. Through serendipity and aesthetic indeterminacy, she creates dreamlike experiences. Embracing "viscerality," her work captures the complexities of human interiority and the fragility of existence.Elhem Younes employs technology thoughtfully as a means of artistic expression, deepening the exploration of her vision.
Ezi Zhang is a multi-diversified artist whose main creative media are mixed media painting, printmaking, 3D, generative art, and sound. In the process of absorbing all kinds of information, the elements that trigger one's synesthesia are collected as pigments and then recreated in the soul memory, which is the process of self-suppression and visualization.
The Mainline Group is an artery thath pumps histories of people, machines, space,s and places between its two lungs: Lena Kilina (PhD, UNICAMP) and Sofya Chibisguleva (MA, Royal College of Art). We are a new kind of artist duo, which doesn’t have to coexist in orderto co-createee. We are ancient storytellers armed for a discussion with the technosphere. We are the East and the West. We are the global migrants, the children of lost ideologies, bornin countriess thath no longer exist.
Both separately and together we create stories about the fusion of people with their cultural past and collective futures via contemporary forms of narration: moving images, sound, performance, audiobooks, and printed media. Born in Shanghai at around 4 am in November of 2017 we live primarily in British, Brazilian, Chinese, and Eastern European cultural realms.
For the intellectually curious and aesthetically attuned, the School of Fine Arts in Athens presents "AI versus ART @ ASFA," a symposium slated for the 10th of November. This confluence of minds serves as an arena for the dialectics between Art and Artificial Intelligence—a nexus of technicity and creativity, ethics and aesthetics. The event is designed as a polylogue, inviting a spectrum of perspectives to interrogate themes such as the Philosophical Underpinnings of AI in Art, Curatorial Strategies in the Age of Algorithms, and the Ethico-Aesthetic Implications of Machine Learning. Each presentation, limited to 20 minutes, aims to distill complex ideas into their most potent form, setting the stage for panel discussions that promise to deepen the discourse. The symposium endeavors to navigate the liminal spaces between form and abstraction, fear and potential, offering a fertile ground for both critique and innovation.
The Chateau de Fey GLITCH residency, inspired an extended extitutionality creates a dynamic, interconnected envolving network of artists and technologists, manifesting hyperstitions and transcending traditional art forms.
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GLITCH is a two-week focused residency at an 18th century chateau in France. About 30-40 participants will be invited to create, imagine, and develop theories, build projects and standards aimed at supporting a new creative ecosystem of open creativity and digital abundance in the blockchain art world. The participants will be a highly curated group of creative and smart individuals actively engaged with NFTs, art, music and AI.
A metaversal manifestation of GLITCH happens within the Unrestricted space.
"Shanghai Sojourn: A Four-Day Academic Odyssey": Hosted by Professor MUJIN at the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts, this immersive residence comprises enlightening lectures and a hands-on M-Station workshop.
"EAAI Explorations: Reimagining Creativity in Metaverses": Delve into the latent, noetic, and virtual realms of creativity, employing a spectrum of emotional, alchemic, and artificial intelligence techniques to redefine artistic boundaries.
"Techno-Rituals: Transforming Spaces into Places": The atelier session focuses on unveiling and integrating innovative techno-rituals, poised to metamorphose conceptual, physical, and digital environments into meaningful, lived experiences.
The physicist John Archibald Wheeler, once harnessed the power of the letter 'U' to encapsulate the concept of a participatory Universe through his renowned second-order symbol. Drawing inspiration from this profound idea, we are excited to present our hybrid exhibition proposal [<-U->].
The symbol U, in the context of the Unrestricted exhibition, encapsulates the lack of (wu - 无) of a containment structure. This medium/structure/context physical/metaphysical/social/noetic is often a synonym of the comfort zone of definitions. After all, to define is to cancel the unrestrictionality.
Within the context of this effort, the term U stands as a testament to art's ability to cross and recross borders as it transcends. Art, at its core, seeks to tap into universal questions, forms,, emotions, and experiences. Regardless of culture, geography, or time, certain modalities and narratives resonate with humanity on a deep, intrinsic level.
1. U as the Observer:
This speaks to the deep relational nature of art (as an individual process or as a cultural process). It expands the notion that art requires an observer, a viewer, or an audience to act, react, interpret, and give meaning to it. The U here represents each one of us, (who from the point of view of the art itself becomes the “u” of an invitation for a dialectic) the individual viewer, bringing our own perspectives, experiences, and emotions to the artwork, thus shaping its interpretation and value.
2. U as the Undefined:
In many ways, art thrives in ambiguity. Its value often lies not in clear-cut answers but in the questions it raises, the emotions it evokes, and the vast expanse of possibilities it presents. The U here denotes the limitless potential and the vast spectrum of interpretations an art piece can harbor. It's about exploring the unknown, embracing uncertainty, and relishing in the unrestricted freedom that art offers.
3. U as the Union:
Art is a fusion. Whether it's merging different mediums, combining contrasting themes, or bridging the tangible with the intangible, art often acts as a union of disparate elements. The U here signifies the confluence of the material with the immaterial, the spiritual with the virtual. It’s about transcending boundaries, melding worlds, and creating something greater than the sum of its parts. {m}U{i}U{s}U{v}
Where
Unrestricted in time, space, modality [<-U->] provides a multiplicity of reference between observers and observed. [<-U->] is manifested in 2 physical spaces in France and Shanghai and in 1 virtual Universe via the Spatial.io platform bridging their definitions and limitations.
The exhibition aims to transpose the art event beyond physical spiritual and digital realms while praising, suggesting and exploring the nonlocality of a digital neo-spatiality driven by aesthetics, pixels and meaning. Artists and spaces are interpreted as multiplicities while their identities are also including the same non-atomicity
The exhibition is curated and partially hosted by Studio 2^6 in Shanghai by artists/educators Iannis Bardakos and Junkai Chen. Set across Shanghai and, it broadly explores the boundless potential of digital identities, relationships, and information all of it via the transformative role of co-spatiality co-formato co-existence.
Arrows of Space, Time, and Identity in the [<-U->] Exhibition
The realms of space, time, and identity have long been conceptual pillars, firmly grounding our perception of reality. These abstract dimensions are the arrows that guide our experiences, our histories, and our very sense of self. The [<-U->] exhibition daringly challenges these foundational arrows.
The artists showcased don't merely interpret these concepts; they audaciously "undefine" them. Through their innovative works, space is no longer just a physical dimension to traverse but a fluid, almost ethereal, expanse that challenges our comprehension. Time, rather than a linear path from past to future, becomes a malleable entity, hinting at its fragility and our ephemeral connection to it. Identity, the most intimate and personal of the three, is deconstructed and reshaped, challenging our entrenched beliefs about self and society.
Each artist approaches these arrows with an unorthodox, even unreasonable, flair. Their pieces may seem disconcerting, even jarring at first. They are unavoidable forms that pull us away from our comfort zones, compelling us to confront, question, and even undo the conventions we've taken for granted.
In [<-U->], the normality of experience is not just expanded, but also exploded, offering visitors a journey that is as disorienting as it is enlightening. The exhibition serves as a testament to the endless possibilities that emerge when we dare to challenge, reimagine, and redefine the arrows that guide us.
The heart of the [<-无限制->] philosophy is to embrace a new existence where physical and digital realms merge seamlessly. It invites audiences to embark on a psycho-immersive journey through the digital landscape to explore the evolution of identity and reality, transforming the familiar into the extraordinary. It's not just an exhibition, but a journey into the future of art and self-expression, redefining the possibilities of existence within the limitless realm of virtuality.
Iannis (John) Bardakos
Metaphysical Ontologist, Hunter Gatherer of Forms and Non-LocalitiesArtist-Academic-AlchemistIn a non-linear oscillation between Athens, Paris, Shanghai
Junkai Chen
Sonic Metaform engineer, Harvester of Timbres and ResonancesDigital-Analogue Maestro-Educator-InnovatorIn a fluid continuum France, China.
Team X无无
Multidimensional Creative Nexus, Convergence of Artistic Realms and InspirationsDigital-Analogue Wonderland-Intellectual Incubator-Cultural Melting PotIn a perpetual state of synergy Shanghai - Paris
Lena Kilina
Interdisciplinary Artist-Researcher, Ethereal Conductor of Chinese-Brazilian Artistic SymphoniesEducator-Performer-Cultural SynthesistIn a dynamic fusion dance between China and Brazil.