Ausstellungsansicht Willkommen im Paradies c NRW Forum Foto Katja Illner 095144
Ausstellungsansicht Willkommen im Paradies / Foto Katja Illner © NRW-Forum Düsseldorf
The world is changing: between global catastrophes and rapid technological progress, humankind is creating new digital spaces for dreams and utopias. What does it mean to be human in this new world, and what if this dream landscape becomes a nightmare?
The exhibition Willkommen im Paradies (Welcome to Paradise) is an immersive, interactive project that transports visitors into fictional worlds between utopia and dystopia.
Ausstellungsansicht Willkommen im Paradies c NRW Forum Foto Katja Illner 20210826 163311
Willkommen im Paradies (Welcome to Paradise) is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and is part of the MARTA project, supported by funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). MARTA is a joint research project by the Hochschule Düsseldorf, the media technology company Tennagels, the Lavalabs agency and the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf that will produce further artistic and technological works. The exhibition was also supported by funds from the District Government of Düsseldorf.
Walk through a transmedia, narrative exhibition architecture, face tasks and engage with artistic works on new forms of spirituality, digital rituals and the question of physicality in the virtual.
A transformative artistic and personal experience in which fiction, science, art, technology, emotions and fantasies meet. At the end of the journey, paradise awaits — or does it?
The exhibition is curated by the artist and curator Vesela Stanoeva and Alain Bieber, artistic director of the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf.
Some of the artworks were found via nextmuseum.io, a collaborative digital platform for co-curation and co-creation. Nextmuseum.io is a joint project by the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf and the Museum Ulm, funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation’s Digital Fund as part of the Kultur Digital program and supported by the Beisheim Foundation.
All artworks, submitted during the Open Call, can be seen here.
Nextmuseum.io has opened a Telegram group where a community discusses the exhibition and its artworks and exchanges ideas about virtual paradises.
App within the Exhibition: Alpha by Fabien Prioville
At the end of the Exhibition awaits the videoinstallation Alpha by the Artist Fabien Prioville. Part of the work is the playful discovering of the whole exhibition. Please download the app (Android or Apple), Follow the instructions and gather four parts of a QR-Code at stations marked with black squares. The put-together QR-Code is the Ticket to the videoinstallation "Alpha" in the rear exhibition room.
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Christiane Peschek talks to Popp, a platform for the research of modern and contemporary art, about her work EDEN. Her self-developed Smartphone Retreat can be seen as an perfomance in the digital space, writes Popp.
If you want to know more; the book about Smartphone Retreat:
Christiane Peschek
EDEN Book
2020
110x194 mm
124 pages
Also available at our museums shop.
Tina Malburg and Emil Cyrill Gerhardt realised the Paradise Stream, a paradisiacal waterfall for the exhibition in cooperation with MIREVI Lab (Mixed Reality and Visualization), a research lab of the Hochschule Düsseldorf. The waterfall reacts to the movement of the visitors.
Vesela Stanoeva is not only the curator of the exhibition but also presents her own work Sun Within. It is all about exploring paradise - not as a place but as a state of consciousness filled with peace and harmony. Her hybrid installation mixes virtual realities with physical experience.
You can see pictures from the process below.
Ausstellungsansicht Willkommen im Paradies / Foto Katja Illner © NRW-Forum Düsseldorf
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Ausstellungsansicht Willkommen im Paradies / Foto Katja Illner © NRW-Forum Düsseldorf
Ausstellungsansicht Willkommen im Paradies c NRW Forum Foto Katja Illner 115057
For the next Lockdown or as a break from Home Office: TheLockdown Survival Game Quarantine Daze Composer by Barbara Herold. An abstract Labyrinth in pixels: just start and climb to the top.
Quarantine Daze Composer is an online JumpnRun-Game and can only be played on PCs with a keyboard (not on mobile devices).
Click here to enter the game
Ausstellungsansicht Willkommen im Paradies / Foto Katja Illner © NRW-Forum Düsseldorf
The artist duo Alexander Groves and Azusa Murakami created "Betweeen tthe Clouds" an installation, wich produces fragrant fog rings an artificial garden Eden spreads in the exhibition room. A.A. Murakami are also known as Studio Swine for their interdisciplinary work between art, arcitecture and science.
#showmeyourparadise
Prior to the exhibition we interviewed artists in our IGTV Series #showmeyourparadise where they shared their personal impressions of paradise with us. Once a month we went on a virtual trip through artists' studios, gardens in Tokyo or down the Thames. In short interviews you learn more about the way the artists work and their life during lockdown.
Watch the episodes on Instagram.
Scentcommunication developed a fragrance for the exhibition. The company works with scents and flavors that one use to identify and rate one's surrounding. Places rooms and humans are often connected to an unique scent.
The fragrance for the exhibition is also available in our shop.
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There is also dancing in our exhibition - with artificial intellegent Spheres! Here are some impressions from the rehearsals.
Martin Backes
Kinetic Walkers
Martin Backes is on display with his work "What do I know? I am just a machine!" zu sehen. Obove we show another work from the artist, Director and Hacker, also dealing with the relationship between human and machine.
Idea, Concept and Design: Martin Backes
Production: Studio Martin Backes in collaboration with Theater Bielefeld
Development and Programming Robot Units: Michael Ang, Martin Backes
Client: Theater Bielefeld / Tanz Bielefeld
Supported by the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia in cooperation with the NRW KULTURsekretariat
Chillout Lounge
Too many virtual realities and digital paradises? After entering the different fictional, visual worlds between utopia and dystopia, you can calm down and relax analogue in our Chillout-Area. Digital detox at it's best: grab yourself a beanbag and dream of your own paradise - on a palm beach, within a spring meadow or infront of a rainbow lined waterfall? Our paradisical backdrops can be your inspiration to create your own dream worlds. The perfect selfie-spot to beam you to a short term vacation!
A collection of articles fitting into the topic of the exhibition. About the virtual, posthuman, world orders, Man-machin and much more.
Ausstellungsansicht Willkommen im Paradies c NRW Forum Foto Katja Illner 20210826 163311
Inne Arne: Die Welt Ohne Uns. Erzählungen über das Zeitalter nicht-menschlicher Akteure
Magdalena Kröner: Digital. Virtuell. Posthuman? Kunstforum, Bd. 265
Vince Dziekan: Virtuality and the Art of Exhibition. Curatorial Design for the multimedial museum
William Irwin Thompson: Evil and World Order
Ana Galvan: Press Enter to Continue
Ezra Claytan Daniels: Upgrade Soul
Douglas Coupland: Machines Will Make Better Choices Than Humans
Daniel Binrbaum, Sven-Olov Wallenstein: Spacing Philosophy: Lyotard and the Idea of the Exhibition
Solitude Journal 2 – On the Occult and the Supernatural
Jens Schröter: Das Netz und die Virtuelle Realität: Zur Selbstprogrammierung der Gesellschaft durch die universelle Maschine
Beth Singler: Existential Hope and Existential Despair in AI Apocalypticism and Transhumanism
