FIESP houses international festival merging art and technology
The ties connecting art, creativity, and technology—these provide the basis for the more than 230 artworks on display in another edition of the Electronic Language International Festival, or FILE, which started this Wednesday (Jul 13) at the FIESP Cultural Center, on Paulista Avenue, São Paulo. Since its creation, back in 2000, the gathering has showcased the most cutting-edge novelties in the aesthetics of electronic art from across the world.
Liminal
The theme for this edition is Supercreativity, and works range from video art, animations, and games to augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and interactive installations—like Louis-Philippe Rondeau’s Liminal.
Electronic Language International Festival 2022, also known as FILE, in São Paulo – Rovena Rosa / Agência Brasil
Liminal is an arch installed at the center of the exhibition area, and consists of a sort of time portal. By walking through it, visitors see their image projected on the screen through slit-scan. The artist attempts to create a visual metaphor on the threshold between present and past, drawing attention to the dilation of time as well as one's own reflection.
Electronic Language International Festival 2022, also known as FILE, in São Paulo – Rovena Rosa / Agência Brasil
Another feature piece is Augmented Shadow: Inside, by South Korean Joon Y. Moon, unprecedented in Brazil. This augmented-reality experience allows visitors to interact with characters in the virtual shadows of real 3D objects, like doors, windows and chairs.
Supercreativity
Electronic Language International Festival 2022, also known as FILE, in São Paulo – Rovena Rosa / Agência Brasil
“We’re coming back [with FILE] after nearly three years of pandemic. This edition includes two fronts: an adaptation of what we’d been thinking before the pandemic, when [the festival] did not take place; plus what we managed to combine with what we think about what’s happening now. Originally, we had worked on an event entirely dedicated to artificial intelligence. But Supercreativity deals precisely with how artificial intelligence can be detached from itself. It’s just a tool some of the works here happen to make use of,” said FILE co-founder Paula Perissinotto.
“Creativity can be found not only in a number of works here, not only in the arts, but also in various areas and aspects of our society. And that’s the insight we’re trying to stimulate here,” she added, in an interview with Agência Brasil. “Visitors here are given a lot of opportunities to perceive the use of technology as a tool for creation, not just consumption”, she argued.
#L1
Chief among the festival’s highlights is the installation #L1, by Fernando Velásquez featuring programmer Gustavo Milward. In an interview with Agência Brasil, Milward said that the piece, which consists of 16 neon bars, is not interactive, but rather unique: each visitor going through it has a different experience. The neon bars turn on or off and flicker according to algorithms. “It’s not an interactive work. It doesn’t have motion sensors, for example. But there’s a logic to it. It’ll never repeat itself,” Milward noted.
Electronic Language International Festival 2022, also known as FILE, in São Paulo – Rovena Rosa / Agência Brasil
Also on display is an enormous wall with 140 QR codes. A new experience is offered to the public with each link. “A total of 140 artworks are arranged in QR codes, which visitors can access using their cellphones and headsets. They’re works of video art, digital art, and sound art”, Perissinotto said.
Electronic Language International Festival 2022, also known as FILE, in São Paulo – Rovena Rosa / Agência Brasil
LED show
Electronic Language International Festival 2022, also known as FILE, in São Paulo – Rovena Rosa / Agência Brasil
On the outside, the Cultural Center building itself will be displaying projected artworks for the duration of the festival daily. The intervention can be seen by anyone on Avenida Paulista between 7 pm and 6 am.
The event is free of charge and runs until August 28. More information is available on the FILE website.
