Artist: Varvara Guljajeva & Mar Canet
Website: http://www.varvarag.info/
Works at: Seoul Art Space_GeumCheon
Stays in: 2012
Genre: Visual Arts
Profile:
- Varvara Guljajeva
Education
2011 -… PhD in Art at Art and Design department in Estonian Art Academy (Tallinn, Estonia)
2006 – 2008 Master in Digital Media and Art at International School of New Media at the University of Lübeck (Germany)
2003 – 2006 BSc. in Information Technology at Estonian IT College
2011 -… PhD in Art at Art and Design department in Estonian Art Academy (Tallinn, Estonia)
2006 – 2008 Master in Digital Media and Art at International School of New Media at the University of Lübeck (Germany)
2003 – 2006 BSc. in Information Technology at Estonian IT College
Solo Exhibitions
2012 The Rhythm of City, CCGSM, Buenos Aires, Argentina
SPAMpoetry, STPLN, Malmö, Sweden
2011 Flux of Sea, Es Baluard Contemporary Art Museum of Palma, Palma, Spain
SPAMpoetry, STPLN, Malmö, Sweden
2011 Flux of Sea, Es Baluard Contemporary Art Museum of Palma, Palma, Spain
Group Exhibitions
2012 Black Art Weekend (13-16.12.12 ArtDealProject, Barcelona, Spain)
Knitic (28.11-02.12 Marginalia+Lab, Belo Horizonte, Brazil)
DIY (Sept-April DASA, Dortmund, Germany)
Baltic Goes Digital (14.09-04.11 Gdansk, Poland)
Malmö Festivalen (17-24.08 Malmö, Sweden)
Incubarte Festival (21-23.06 Valencia, Spain)
Naturalezas: hiper-vidas y micro-relatos. (13.03-13.04 MOB, Barcelona, Spain)
JUSTMAD3 Art Fair (16-19.02.12 Madrid, Spain)
Abstraction Contraption (15.01-16.03.12 The Edge, State Library of Queensland, AU)
2011 DIY (Aug 2011 – Aug 2012 Frankfurt and Berlin Communication Museums)
Es Baluard Contemporary Art Museum of Palma (09.12.11, Palma, Spain)
Elektronika Festival (12-27.11.11 Belo Horizonte, Brazil)
LAB30 (27.-29.10.11 Augsburg, Germany)
VAD Festival (06-15.10.11 Girona, Spain)
AND Festival (23.09-02.10.11 Liverpool, UK)
RepairStation (20.05.11 a-day action, FFKD, Copenhagen, Denmark)
Enter5 (14.-23.04.11 CIANT, Prague Czech Republic)
LiveHerring11 (08.04-08.06.11 Saarijärvi, Finland)
2010 Kiblix Festival (18.-28.11.10 Kibla Gallery, Maribor, Slovenia)
UAMO Festival (21.-24.10.10 München, Germany)
White Night (02.10.10 Skopje, Macedonia)
“Playful Interfaces”, Ars Electronica09 Campus exhibition (02.-11.09.10, Linz)
“Final Show of Labor for Electronic Music and New Media Linz”, sound Art performance at STWST Media Linz (30.06.2010, Linz, Austria)
“El Festival Internacional de la Imagen”, Universidad de Caldas (13.-17.04.10, Colombia)
“Love The Robot Show”, online performance, DOCK18, Zürich
23rd Stuttgarter Filmwinter (20.-30.01.2010, Germany)
2009 “Royal Interface Cultures Masquerade Ball”, Ars Electronica09 Campus exhibition (03.-08.09.09, Linz, Austria)
“Fantasmarama”, group exhibition (02.-07.09.09, Linz, Austria)
International Media Art Festival Cellsbutton#3 (01.-08.08.09, Yogiyakarta, Indonesia)
“Death Bricks”, solo exhibition in collaboration with Derivart, Rocaumbert art centre (Granolles, Spain, 14.05-26.06.09)
Knitic (28.11-02.12 Marginalia+Lab, Belo Horizonte, Brazil)
DIY (Sept-April DASA, Dortmund, Germany)
Baltic Goes Digital (14.09-04.11 Gdansk, Poland)
Malmö Festivalen (17-24.08 Malmö, Sweden)
Incubarte Festival (21-23.06 Valencia, Spain)
Naturalezas: hiper-vidas y micro-relatos. (13.03-13.04 MOB, Barcelona, Spain)
JUSTMAD3 Art Fair (16-19.02.12 Madrid, Spain)
Abstraction Contraption (15.01-16.03.12 The Edge, State Library of Queensland, AU)
2011 DIY (Aug 2011 – Aug 2012 Frankfurt and Berlin Communication Museums)
Es Baluard Contemporary Art Museum of Palma (09.12.11, Palma, Spain)
Elektronika Festival (12-27.11.11 Belo Horizonte, Brazil)
LAB30 (27.-29.10.11 Augsburg, Germany)
VAD Festival (06-15.10.11 Girona, Spain)
AND Festival (23.09-02.10.11 Liverpool, UK)
RepairStation (20.05.11 a-day action, FFKD, Copenhagen, Denmark)
Enter5 (14.-23.04.11 CIANT, Prague Czech Republic)
LiveHerring11 (08.04-08.06.11 Saarijärvi, Finland)
2010 Kiblix Festival (18.-28.11.10 Kibla Gallery, Maribor, Slovenia)
UAMO Festival (21.-24.10.10 München, Germany)
White Night (02.10.10 Skopje, Macedonia)
“Playful Interfaces”, Ars Electronica09 Campus exhibition (02.-11.09.10, Linz)
“Final Show of Labor for Electronic Music and New Media Linz”, sound Art performance at STWST Media Linz (30.06.2010, Linz, Austria)
“El Festival Internacional de la Imagen”, Universidad de Caldas (13.-17.04.10, Colombia)
“Love The Robot Show”, online performance, DOCK18, Zürich
23rd Stuttgarter Filmwinter (20.-30.01.2010, Germany)
2009 “Royal Interface Cultures Masquerade Ball”, Ars Electronica09 Campus exhibition (03.-08.09.09, Linz, Austria)
“Fantasmarama”, group exhibition (02.-07.09.09, Linz, Austria)
International Media Art Festival Cellsbutton#3 (01.-08.08.09, Yogiyakarta, Indonesia)
“Death Bricks”, solo exhibition in collaboration with Derivart, Rocaumbert art centre (Granolles, Spain, 14.05-26.06.09)
Project
Knitic – open source knitting machine (www.knitic.com )
Awards
2012 award of Baltic Goes Digital, Gdansk, Poland
2010 Jury Prize for media art installation at 23rd Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Germany
2008 special prize at Time Warp, International Music and Media Festival
2010 Jury Prize for media art installation at 23rd Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Germany
2008 special prize at Time Warp, International Music and Media Festival
Residency
2013 residency at Constant / Variable, Brussels, Belgium (March)
2012/13 residency at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, Seul, Korea (Dec-March)
2012 residency at Marginalia+Lab, Belo Horizonte, Brazil (Sep-Nov)
residency at Verbeke Foundation, Belgium (July-Aug)
M4m Artist in Residency at MU Gallery, Eindhoven, NL (Jan-April)
2011 Artist in Residency at Crida, Palma de Mallorca, Spain (Nov-Dec)
EMARE Artist in Residency at FACT Liverpool, UK (July-Nov)
Guest Researcher at IAMAS, Japan (May-July)
Collaborative Research Residency at FFKD in Copenhagen (April)
2012/13 residency at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, Seul, Korea (Dec-March)
2012 residency at Marginalia+Lab, Belo Horizonte, Brazil (Sep-Nov)
residency at Verbeke Foundation, Belgium (July-Aug)
M4m Artist in Residency at MU Gallery, Eindhoven, NL (Jan-April)
2011 Artist in Residency at Crida, Palma de Mallorca, Spain (Nov-Dec)
EMARE Artist in Residency at FACT Liverpool, UK (July-Nov)
Guest Researcher at IAMAS, Japan (May-July)
Collaborative Research Residency at FFKD in Copenhagen (April)
- Mar Canet
Solo Exhibitions
2012 The Rhythm of City, CCGSM, Buenos Aires, Argentina
SPAMpoetry, STPLN, Malmö, Sweden
2011 Flux of Sea, Es Baluard Contemporary Art Museum of Palma, Palma, Spain
SPAMpoetry, STPLN, Malmö, Sweden
2011 Flux of Sea, Es Baluard Contemporary Art Museum of Palma, Palma, Spain
Group Exhibitions
13-16.12.12 Black Art Weekend (ArtDealProject, Barcelona, Spain)
29/11/2012 to 10/12/2012 “The Rhythm of City” at Noviembre Digital (Buenas Aires, Argentina)
28/11/2012 to 02/12/2012 “Knitic” at Marginalia+Lab (Belo Horizonte, Brasil)
15/11/2012 to 15/12/2012 “Lummoblocks” at Science Gallery Dublin (Dublin, Ireland)
10/11/2012 to 17/11/2012 “Lummoblocks” at Glow (Eindhoven, Netherlands)
29/09/2012 to 28/04/2012 “Shopping in 1 minute” at DIY exhibition in DASA (Dortmund, Germany)
20/09/2012 to 22/09/2012 “Lummoblocks” at Festes de la Mercè (Barcelona, Spain)
14/09/2012 to 04/11/2012 “Baltic Sea Radio” at Baltic Goes Digital (Gdansk City Gallery, Poland)
17/08/2012 to 24/08/2012 “SPAMpoetry” at Mälmo Festivalen (Malmö, Sweden)
17/07/2012 to 19/08/2012 “Videomaton” at File Festival (Sao Paulo, Brasil)
11/05/2012 to 18/05/2012 “SPAMpoetry” solo exhibition at STPLN (Malmö, Sweden)
13/03/2012 to 13/04/2012 “Naturalezas: hiper-vidas y micro-relatos” (MOB, Barcelona, Spain)#6/02/2012 to 19/02/2012 “Echinodermata”, “The Flux of Sea” at JUSTmad3 (Madrid, Spain)
09/12/2012 “The Flux of Sea” at Es Baluard (Palma, Spain)
15/11/2011 to 19/11/2011 Gamebroker at Platine festival(Cologne, Germany)
08/2011 to 08/2012 “Shopping in 1 Minute” at Frankfurt and Berlin Communication Museums
12/11/11 to 27/11/2011 “Rhythm of City” at Elektronika Festival (Belo Horizonte, Brazil)
27/10/11 to 29/10/2011 “Rhythm of City” at LAB30 (Augsburg, Germany)
13/10/2011 to 15/02/2012 “Videomaton” at Angels and Devils (Madrid City Council, Spain).
23/09/2011 to 02/10/2011 “Popcorn for Cycling” and “Pixel Killers” at AND Festival (Liverpool, UK)
27/08/2011 “Lummoblocks” at Agosto digital CCE (Cordoba, Argentina)
14/04/2011 to 23/04/2011 “Rhythm of City” at Enter5 (CIANT, Prague, Czech Republic)
07/04/2011 to 05/06/2011 “Echinodermata” at LiveHerring’11 (Saarijärvi City Museum, Finland)
27/03/2011 to 30/08/2011 “Videomaton” at Inhabitants and walkers(Madrid City Council, Spain).
27/12/2010 to 08/01/2011 “Lummoblocks” at Festival Actual 2011 Museo Würth (Logroño, Spain)
18/11/2010 to 28/11/2010 “Gamebroker”, “Shopping in 1 Minute” at Kiblix festival (Kibla gallery, Maribor,
Slovenia)
13/10/2010 to 17/10/2010 “Gamebroker” at Impakt festival (Utrecht, Netherlands)
11/09/2010 “Lummoblocks” at Collegium Hungaricum as part European Media Facade Festival (Berlin,
Germany)
11/09/2010 “Lummoblocks” at Noche en Blanco 2010 (Madrid, Spain)
02/09/2010 to 11/09/2010 “Shopping in 1 Minute”, “Playfulness”, “LummoBlocks”, “Nica.freeware” at
Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria)
14/06/2010 to 14/07/2010 “Lummoblocks” at Festival 21 grados (Sevilla, Spain)
13/05/2010 to 31/06/2010 “ImpossibleLove.org” in Library Vasconcelos (Mexico)
20/01/2010 to 31/01/2010 “My name is 192.168.159.16” at 23rd Stuttgarter Filmwinter (Stuttgart,
Germany)
14/05/2009 to 28/06/2009 “Death brick” (solo exhibition) at La Fabrica de les artes (Granollers, Spain)
22/01/2009 to 25/01/2009 "Spreadplayer" at Festival for Expanded Media Stuttgarter FilmWinter
(Stuttgart,Germany).
29/11/2012 to 10/12/2012 “The Rhythm of City” at Noviembre Digital (Buenas Aires, Argentina)
28/11/2012 to 02/12/2012 “Knitic” at Marginalia+Lab (Belo Horizonte, Brasil)
15/11/2012 to 15/12/2012 “Lummoblocks” at Science Gallery Dublin (Dublin, Ireland)
10/11/2012 to 17/11/2012 “Lummoblocks” at Glow (Eindhoven, Netherlands)
29/09/2012 to 28/04/2012 “Shopping in 1 minute” at DIY exhibition in DASA (Dortmund, Germany)
20/09/2012 to 22/09/2012 “Lummoblocks” at Festes de la Mercè (Barcelona, Spain)
14/09/2012 to 04/11/2012 “Baltic Sea Radio” at Baltic Goes Digital (Gdansk City Gallery, Poland)
17/08/2012 to 24/08/2012 “SPAMpoetry” at Mälmo Festivalen (Malmö, Sweden)
17/07/2012 to 19/08/2012 “Videomaton” at File Festival (Sao Paulo, Brasil)
11/05/2012 to 18/05/2012 “SPAMpoetry” solo exhibition at STPLN (Malmö, Sweden)
13/03/2012 to 13/04/2012 “Naturalezas: hiper-vidas y micro-relatos” (MOB, Barcelona, Spain)#6/02/2012 to 19/02/2012 “Echinodermata”, “The Flux of Sea” at JUSTmad3 (Madrid, Spain)
09/12/2012 “The Flux of Sea” at Es Baluard (Palma, Spain)
15/11/2011 to 19/11/2011 Gamebroker at Platine festival(Cologne, Germany)
08/2011 to 08/2012 “Shopping in 1 Minute” at Frankfurt and Berlin Communication Museums
12/11/11 to 27/11/2011 “Rhythm of City” at Elektronika Festival (Belo Horizonte, Brazil)
27/10/11 to 29/10/2011 “Rhythm of City” at LAB30 (Augsburg, Germany)
13/10/2011 to 15/02/2012 “Videomaton” at Angels and Devils (Madrid City Council, Spain).
23/09/2011 to 02/10/2011 “Popcorn for Cycling” and “Pixel Killers” at AND Festival (Liverpool, UK)
27/08/2011 “Lummoblocks” at Agosto digital CCE (Cordoba, Argentina)
14/04/2011 to 23/04/2011 “Rhythm of City” at Enter5 (CIANT, Prague, Czech Republic)
07/04/2011 to 05/06/2011 “Echinodermata” at LiveHerring’11 (Saarijärvi City Museum, Finland)
27/03/2011 to 30/08/2011 “Videomaton” at Inhabitants and walkers(Madrid City Council, Spain).
27/12/2010 to 08/01/2011 “Lummoblocks” at Festival Actual 2011 Museo Würth (Logroño, Spain)
18/11/2010 to 28/11/2010 “Gamebroker”, “Shopping in 1 Minute” at Kiblix festival (Kibla gallery, Maribor,
Slovenia)
13/10/2010 to 17/10/2010 “Gamebroker” at Impakt festival (Utrecht, Netherlands)
11/09/2010 “Lummoblocks” at Collegium Hungaricum as part European Media Facade Festival (Berlin,
Germany)
11/09/2010 “Lummoblocks” at Noche en Blanco 2010 (Madrid, Spain)
02/09/2010 to 11/09/2010 “Shopping in 1 Minute”, “Playfulness”, “LummoBlocks”, “Nica.freeware” at
Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria)
14/06/2010 to 14/07/2010 “Lummoblocks” at Festival 21 grados (Sevilla, Spain)
13/05/2010 to 31/06/2010 “ImpossibleLove.org” in Library Vasconcelos (Mexico)
20/01/2010 to 31/01/2010 “My name is 192.168.159.16” at 23rd Stuttgarter Filmwinter (Stuttgart,
Germany)
14/05/2009 to 28/06/2009 “Death brick” (solo exhibition) at La Fabrica de les artes (Granollers, Spain)
22/01/2009 to 25/01/2009 "Spreadplayer" at Festival for Expanded Media Stuttgarter FilmWinter
(Stuttgart,Germany).
Awards
2012 Award of Baltic Goes Digital, Gdansk, Poland
2010 Jury Prize for media art installation at 23rd Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Germany
2008 Special prize at Time Warp, International Music and Media Festival
2006 Inéditos - curatorship award by Caja Madrid.
2010 Jury Prize for media art installation at 23rd Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Germany
2008 Special prize at Time Warp, International Music and Media Festival
2006 Inéditos - curatorship award by Caja Madrid.
Residency
2013 residency at Constant / Variable, Brussels, Belgium (March)
2012/13 residency at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, Seul, Korea (Dec-March)
2012 residency at Marginalia+Lab, Belo Horizonte, Brazil (Sep-Nov)
residency at Verbeke Foundation, Belgium (July-Aug)
M4m Artist in Residency at MU Gallery, Eindhoven, NL (Jan-April)
2011 Artist in Residency at Crida, Palma de Mallorca, Spain (Nov-Dec)
EMARE Artist in Residency at FACT Liverpool, UK (July-Nov)
Guest Researcher at IAMAS, Japan (May-July)
Collaborative Research Residency at FFKD in Copenhagen (April)
2012/13 residency at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, Seul, Korea (Dec-March)
2012 residency at Marginalia+Lab, Belo Horizonte, Brazil (Sep-Nov)
residency at Verbeke Foundation, Belgium (July-Aug)
M4m Artist in Residency at MU Gallery, Eindhoven, NL (Jan-April)
2011 Artist in Residency at Crida, Palma de Mallorca, Spain (Nov-Dec)
EMARE Artist in Residency at FACT Liverpool, UK (July-Nov)
Guest Researcher at IAMAS, Japan (May-July)
Collaborative Research Residency at FFKD in Copenhagen (April)
Works:
SPAMpoetry, sculptures + installation, knitted garment, variable measures, 2012
The Rhythm of Sao Paulo, urban installation, FIESP building, 2012
Flux of Sea, silk print, paper, 2011
Kombi, sculpture, knitted garment and wood, 255 x 150 x 90cm, 2012
Popcorn for Cycling, installation, mixed media, 2011
The Rhythm of City, installation, mixed media, 2011
Shopping in 1 Minute, installation, mixed media, 100 x 70 x 150cm, 2010
Echinodermata, sculptures, mixed media, 3 sculptures of 50 x 50 x 40cm, 2011
Budgie Waltz, installation, mixed media, 2012
Baltic Sea Radio, installation, mixed media, 2012
Varvara Guljajeva & Mar Canet Sola
We are an artist duo working together since 2009. We are concerned about new forms of art. Thus, our work involves experiments, innovation, crossing boarders, and more. In short, our practice is expressing broad range of interest and attitude towards society. We apply variety of media: sculpture, installation, photography, sound art, performance, activism, social projects, game-art, software art. This demonstrates our nonlinear search and development for new forms and media of art.
Ubiquitous artists
Pau Waelder (Critic, Curator and Researcher)
Artist-in-residency programs have multiplied over the last years, allowing creators to develop their projects in different locations while establishing an international network of contacts. Even in the age of email and portfolio websites, artists need to travel, and some in fact adopt a nomadic lifestyle, jumping from one residency program to another. Varvara Guljajeva and Mar Canet perfectly embody the profile of the current ubiquitous artist. They met in Barcelona, moved to Linz (Austria) and then started a residency marathon that has taken them to several different countries (Holland, Belgium, Brazil, Korea) while exploring the creative uses of technology in a series of continuously evolving artistic projects. Whether knitting SPAM poetry in Eindhoven, capturing marine traffic in the form of sound in Gdansk or visualizing social data in Sao Paulo, neither their ideas nor their luggage have reached the end of the journey.
Not surprisingly, location and data flows are the two main vectors of their recent artistic practice. Their projects reflect on the existence of an information landscape that is perceived as globally pervasive but is in fact unevenly distributed. Guljajeva and Canet travel around the world while keeping an umbilical cord connected to the global network, which becomes an invisible companion along their journey. Connectivity is a growing need in our daily lives: it is the main reason to carry at all times our handheld digital devices with us and look for Wi-Fi networks, living at once in the physical space while keeping our minds focused on the imaginary space of social networks and ethereal relationships. When we can't access the Internet we feel like expatriates, cut off from a place we belong to. This feeling is increased in a foreign land, where we need to find our bearings and hold on to our digital self as a fixed point of reference.
Wi-Fi networks participate in our paradoxical relationship between the global and the local: on the one hand, they enable permanent connectivity and an ubiquitous flow of data; on the other, they are based on a specific object, a router, which is owned and physically placed in a certain location. Ownership implies certain rights, such as allowing or denying access, but also being able to rename the network in order to differentiate it from others within range. This provides users with an unprecedented (and usually overlooked) form of expressing themselves on the data landscape.
During their residency at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, Varvara Guljajeva and Mar Canet have developed two projects in which Wi-Fi network names are used as the material for innovative artistic experimentation. <Revealing Digital Landscape> (2013) is a paperback publication that results from scanning the Wi-Fi networks in various neighborhoods of the city of Seoul. An index, a phone book of sorts, a collection of names, this volume reveals the invisible information layer that extends over the urban space; each area is populated by a myriad of devices that spell out to the air the names given to them by their owners. These names, that can only be read when trying to access the Wi-Fi networks in each area, have an ephemeral existence that is here brought to permanent visibility. The <Wireless Poetry> (2013) project, on the contrary, takes printed literature to the transitory realm of wireless local area networks. In this project, the artists broadcast a poem by Eduard Escoffet in the form of 32-character lines that rename the network of a dedicated WiFi router every two minutes. The poem can thus be read by trying to access this network or by reading the display of a device created by the artists. In both projects, the narrative possibilities and cultural background of wireless networks are explored; as is our interaction with the data flows in our environment and the underlying contradiction between our physical location and our virtual, ubiquitous selves.
