The next node in the Talk to Me network is Basel. At the second half of May RIXC traveled to Basel, Switzerland, to set up art works “Talk to Me” and “Renewable Network Interface” at the gallery space of The House of Electronic Arts Basel. RIXC artists – Rasa Šmite, Raitis Šmits and Mārtiņš Ratniks – are participating in media art exhibition “Gateways. Art and Networked Culture”. The opening of the exhibition took place on June 1 and it will be open until August 19 – if you happen to be in Basel, welcome, here is the address of the gallery!
Entrance of the HeK gallery space with the exhibition poster. Photo: Martins Ratniks
The House of Electronic Arts Basel presents a selection of works from the exhibition “Gateways. Art and Networked Culture”, which took place at the KUMU Art Museum as a part of the European Capital of Culture Tallinn 2011 programme. Artists in Basel exhibition: Aram Bartholl (Germany), boredomresearch (UK), Ingo Günther (Germany), Hanna Haaslahti (Finland), Andreja Kulunčić (Croatia), Les Liens Invisibles (Italy), Jenny Marketou (US), Achim Mohné and Uta Kopp (Germany), Rasa Šmite, Raitis Šmits, Mārtiņš Ratniks / RIXC (Latvia), Thomson & Craighead (UK), Timo Toots (Estonia), You Must Relax (Estonia).
Here in the picture you can see how small the bean plants where when we left them to grow in the gallery. May, 2012, photo: Martins Ratniks.
We invite you to watch the bean plants growing live (look, they are already reaching towards the ceiling!) and send encouraging messages to the plants in Switzerland: http://talktome.rixc.lv!
There is also a bilingual exhibition catalogue (German/English) available with essays on European media art by Sabine Himmelsbach, Karin Ohlenschläger, Sirje Helme, Milos Peternák, Inke Arns and Raivo Kelomees.
Exhibition catalogue cover. Published at Hatje Cantz 2011, ISBN 978-3-7757-2796-9.
Currently (June 17-24, 2012) Rasa and Raitis is at Post-Media Lab residency in Lüneburg (Germany). The residency is a collaboration between Leuphana University of Lüneburg and Mute Magazine. There among research activities they are also presenting the plant communication project and art work “Talk to Me”.
Next nodes in Talk to Me network will be in the cities in Latvia, namely, in Ventspils (starting the end of June) and Riga (starting July 5) where “Talk to Me” will be installed in the Botanical Garden of University of Latvia!
Project authors and producers: Rasa Šmite, Raitis Šmits, Mārtiņš Ratniks, Daina Siliņa, Agnese Baranova, Dāvis Bojārs.
RIXC’s participates in the “Gateways” exhibition in Basel with the kind support of The House of Electronic Arts Basel, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia and EU programme FP7 (in the framework of StudioLab project).
by Daina / RIXC