Interconnect @ Between Attention and Immersion

Following the summer holidays, the ZKM | Media Museum invites the public to a large-scale survey of contemporary Brazilian media art, with selected works from this year’s »Sérgio Motta Prize« competition.

New spaces of experience. With an eye schooled in the artistic trends of Europe and North America, the new generation of Brazilian artists treads various paths. The broad spectrum of their media art ranges from the digital manipulation of structures and textures, through the creative-playful appropriation of new technical possibilities, to the radical criticism of media and society. In the selected works, experiences from everyday life, personal and public spaces merge into a far-reaching reflection on the meaning and status of self-images in society. At the focus of this coming to grips with the new media of film and television, video, computer and their interlocking, is not the most virtuoso possible application of new technologies, but rather the now considered, now nervous, driven and never-ceasing search for identity and determination of position which rapid social change constantly demands of the individual. This is all the more urgent as new interface technologies and immersive installations are constantly expanding the spaces of our experience.

Media art in Brazil. The »Prêmio Sérgio Motta de Arte et Technologia« was first awarded in 2000. Its goal is to foster artistic and theoretical work in the area of the arts and new media in Brazil. Today the prize is one of the most important initiatives outside the academic context for the promotion of contemporary culture in combination with the new dimensions of Brazilian digital culture. Conceived as a response to the waxing acceleration of the dialogue between the arts and sciences, it has been adjusted every year to current development and formats. Today it fosters works in the categories of the fine arts, music, literature, dance, performance, interactive art and the interdisciplinary theoretical discussion of these.