At the end of November, the new media art festival UPDATE took place in Liepāja. It included nine workshops, three masterclasses, discussions and presentations, bringing together around 150 young artists, students, designers and IT enthusiasts. The main theme of the festival was automation processes in art, their opportunities and challenges. The festival was followed by two exhibitions, the first dedicated to the new works of art developed during the workshops and the second, “Update. Automated Creativity”, featured works by Latvian and foreign artists, including several of the UPDATE workshop leaders.
Workshop participants worked intensively with the workshop leaders over several days to learn new creative technologies, create prototypes, individual and collective artworks, and explore the festival theme from different angles.
In the “Image as Adventure” workshop with Taavi Suisalu (EE), participants worked creatively with artificial intelligence image generation tools to document a non-existent exhibition.
John Grzinich’s (US/EE) “Audio Swarming: exploring cognitive and performative dynamics through sound” used everyday objects and available technologies to create a collective “audio swarm”.
Under the guidance of Sol Sarratea (AR/DE), participants created various audiovisual, generative and interactive systems, working with the languages of mathematics, coding and art.
Together with Fricis Kalvelis at the Liepaja Science and Education Innovation Centre FabLab, participants used 3D printers as drawing tools.
Artist Sabrina Durling-Jones (US), in her workshop, taught how to create AI visualisations from a self-selected dataset, for example – of their own work.
Oleksandr Sirous (UA/FR) showed how to create interactive environments using game engines.
In the workshop “Eternal beginning” with Krista Dzudzilo, participants thought about the moment when a simple object becomes a work of art. At the end of the workshop, new conceptual works were exhibited.
The workshop by Imants Žodžíks explored analogue photography. It looked at the whole process – from choosing the camera and lenses to developing and making copies.
Artist and film-maker Pete Gomez (UK) has developed a methodology for working collectively on a film, where the participants form an ensemble and all work on both sides of the camera, as well as sound processing and editing. The group worked in this way to create an experimental short film.
On 25th of November, an exhibition of the works created during the festival was opened, followed by an experimental performance programme “uDISCO” in the evening.
On 15 February, the exhibition “Automatic Creativity” was opened. It explores the possibilities opened up by contemporary technologies such as artificial intelligence to automate the processes of human life and creative work, as well as the practices of repetition already present in them, and thus how experiences in this new era allow us to look differently at the nature of creativity. The concept of the exhibition was conceived by Anna Priedola. Artists Krista Dzudzilo, Pete Gomez, Sabrina Durling-Jones, Gustavs Lociks, Taavi Suisalu, Oleksandr Sirous reflected on these themes in their exhibition works. Alongside works by world-renowned artists and workshop leaders, collaborative works by festival participants are also on display.
The festival is organised by ASTE. Art, Science, Technology, Education and the Art Research Laboratory of the University of Liepaja.Supported by the Liepaja Culture Board, Kurzeme Planning Region and Latvian Historical Lands, Liepaja Music, Art and Design Secondary School, the cultural centre “Kursas putni”, the new media culture centre RIXC and the State Culture Capital Foundation.
