CYLAND MediaArtLab presents the CYFEST-13 International Media Art Festival (St. Petersburg, 11.11 — 28.11.2021)
CYFEST, one of the biggest international media art festivals in Eastern Europe, was founded by a group of independent artists and curators in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 2007. Since its inception, CYFEST’s main concerns have been to examine the dialogue between new and traditional visual languages and to show technological achievements via artistic transformation. CYFEST unites art professionals, artists, curators, educators and thinkers, programmers, engineers, and media activists all over the world, and expands contemporary art, intertwining it with various disciplines of science and technology.
The festival program includes several exhibition projects, sound art, video and educational programs.
CYFEST is a unique international project that popularizes Russian media art abroad, and international media art in Russia. Its exhibitions, performances, concerts, video screenings and other events are held not only in Petersburg, but also in other cities around the world: London, New York, Moscow, Rome, Berlin, Vilnius, Tokyo, Bogota and Venice.
The festival won a Sergei Kuryokhin prize in 2018 in the category «Best contemporary art festival»
The Petersburg CYFEST uses both classical and experimental city art spaces, including the Saint Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design, the State Hermitage Youth Education Center, the Annenkirche, the AIR gallery (Art.ITMO.Residency), the Luda gallery of Peter Belyi, and the Borey art center.
The festival topic in 2021 is Cosmos and Chaos.
«Every style in art has tried to give birth to its own cosmos — an aesthetic structure and a formal solution. But what happens when the aesthetic and formal lose their meaning in the process of determining what art is? Does an abyss give birth to an abyss? What could “immeasurable” information engender? Or will new technologies soon completely engulf the aesthetic, and our old cosmos of meanings will be of absolutely no interest to a new generation of artists?»
— Elena Gubanova, curator
Over 70 participants from 17 countries will take part in CYFEST-13. They include Anton Vidokle, artist, curator, participants of Document 13 and the 56th Venice Biennale, founder and chief editor of the e-flux journal; the art group and pioneers of Russian science art Where Dogs Run; sound artist, media archaeologist, designer of musical instruments Boris Shershenkov; Austrian artist, participant of the Ars Electronica festival Rebecca Merlic; Italian researcher and interdisciplinary artist Emilio Vavarella; experimental musician from New York and former curator of Harvestworks Hans Tammen and more.
Students from the Saint Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design, the Art&Science masters program from ITMO University and the PRO ARTE School of the Young Artist will also be taking part in the festival. Their projects will be shown at the Stieglitz Academy, Annekirche and at ITMO University's AIR gallery (Art.ITMO.Residency).
Curators: Anna Frants (Russia-USA), Elena Gubanova (Russia), Lydia Griaznova (Russia-Estonia), Sofia Kudryavtseva (Russia), Victoria Ilyushkina (Russia), Sergey Komarov (Russia), Varvara Egorova (Russia), Alexandra Dementieva (Belgium), Christiana Kazakou (Greece-UK), Karolin Tampere (Norway), Danielle Siembieda (USA), Patricia Olynyk (USA–Canada), Nina Czegledy (Canada), Jerome Nivet-Carzon (France).