Art Program Installations Announced for SXSW 2022
Announcing six art installations to be exhibited at the annual SXSW Art Program from March 11-20, 2022 in Austin, TX.
Each year, the SXSW Art Program showcases experiential and conceptual visual artworks that apply emerging technologies and immersive environments to spark discovery, inspiration, and connection. Incorporated into the broader ecosystem of creativity and innovation at SXSW, attendees can experience one-of-a-kind art installations by both established and emerging artists throughout SXSW venues and the city of Austin.
“The 2022 SXSW Art Program spotlights six artists from around the world whose work will resonate with our diverse audience of creative professionals,” said Hugh Forrest, Chief Programming Officer. “These stellar installations are physical representations of many of the topics that are being discussed at the SXSW Conference, such as the impact of technology on the human spirit, cultural tradition, and the environment.”
Explore the 2022 Art Program installations below as well as art-related Conference sessions.
2022 SXSW Art Program
CO2 Critical Rising - 800,000 Years of Data by Beatie Wolfe
An Environmental Protest Piece Built From 800,000 Years of Our Planet's Data
Art rebel Beatie Wolfe creates a stirring environmental art piece about human impact on the planet, built using 800,000 years of historic NASA data. “From Green to Red” (taken from the title of a song Wolfe wrote in 2006 after seeing An Inconvenient Truth) tracks the impact of human behavior on the planet, creating a stirring visualization of rising CO2 levels, and asks us the question, "Is it too late to turn back?"
FRAMERATE: Pulse of the Earth by ScanLAB Projects
FRAMERATE’s hypnotic imagery bears witness to landscapes in flux. The impact of human behavior and the immense force of nature unfolds around you across an array of screens. FRAMERATE invites you to observe in another way. To think and feel in another time scale: geological time, seasonal time, tidal time. To contemplate change and the pace of change. This is a space where your perspective might shift. ScanLAB Projects is an award-winning creative studio. Founded in 2010, ScanLAB specializes in exploring the use of large scale 3D scanning in architecture and the creative industries. ScanLAB has been featured in major TV documentaries and cinema screenings, widely published and exhibited internationally.
Offer Them Comfort. Offer Them Rest by Desiree Vaniecia
This title derives from a poem written by author Nayyirah Waheed regarding fear. In this exhibition, Desiree is documenting her fears of motherhood and coming to terms with situations she has no control over. Desiree Vanieciais a contemporary painter who lives and works in Dallas, TX. Raised in a matriarchal home, her work pays homage to her family and their legacy. Her distinctive personal style challenges a stereotype of Black women constructed by the media. Her portraits evoke both vulnerability and strength though posture, physical interaction, or compositional format. Gestures and poses are presented as powerful, whether through sexuality or assurance, while facial expressions and anatomical detail are left reduced and neutral within the empty or vague settings.
ORDER OF MAGNITUDE by Ben Grosser
Called “freakish” by Boing Boing, “literal art” by Fast Company, and “a hilarious satire on 24/7 overlords” by The Guardian, ORDER OF MAGNITUDE is an epic Mark Zuckerberg supercut that chronicles Silicon Valley's 21st century obsession with growth. Ben Grosser creates interactive experiences, machines, and systems that examine the cultural, social, and political effects of software. Recent exhibition venues include the Barbican Centre in London, Museum Kesselhaus in Berlin, Rijksmuseum Twenthe in the Netherlands, and Centre Pompidou in Paris. His works have been featured in The New Yorker, Wired, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, El País, Libération, and Der Spiegel. Grosser is an associate professor in the School of Art + Design, and co-founder of the Critical Technology Studies Lab at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, both at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Repose by JD Moore
Through geometric shapes and ancient Egyptian floral iconography, JD offers the viewer a composition free from stress and anxiety. JD Moore, a figurative painter from Dallas, TX, has been working as a full time artist since 2013. His work features narrative driven oil/acrylic portraiture influenced by the Renaissance, Neoclassicism, and Realism periods. He has sharpened his skills by studying fresco painting under Emanuele Capozza in Tuscany, Italy at the month-long La Macina di San Cresci residency. JD’s work has been featured in the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Contemporary, to name a few.
Server: Checks on the Block by Ciara Elle Bryant
Server: Checks on the Block, takes a deep dive look at where Nike Air Force 1’s exist in present day culture. The replica wall of all white boxes and piles of used, worn, dirty, and fresh pairs of Forces provide a space for a celebration of culture to happen. Server: Checks on the Block, takes up space and is a visual bibliography of the impact of Blackness in the world of art and streetwear. Ciara Elle Bryant is an interdisciplinary creative working and residing in Dallas, TX. Bryant holds a Masters of Fine Art from Southern Methodist University. Through photography, video, mixed media, and installations, Bryant discusses blackness by focusing on how identity and culture exist in the new millennium. Bryant also teaches and facilitates artist workshops for youth and adults while working as a practicing artist. Bryant’s approach to research and curatorial practice has been integral to her process of furthering conversations surrounding black culture in art as well as historical studies.
Conference Sessions with an Art Focus
An Indigenous Perspective of Art and Filmmaking
Indigenous peoples have engaged in art making, storytelling, and design since time immemorial. Much of those traditions have been lost due to colonization and genocide. Moreover, because each Indigenous culture is steeped in its own traditions, material cultural, and arts practices, no singular or universal approach to art making or storytelling exists across all Indigenous cultures. Nevertheless, Indigenous cultures hold many values and practices in common related to design and storytelling, which will be explored during this session as a way to inform our work as artists and filmmakers. During this session, Roni Jo Draper (she|her), a Yurok basket maker and storyteller, will share her basket making processes and how she uses those processes in her filmmaking.
Artificial Life as Art: Reimagining AI
What would it feel like to share the world with machines that could live in the wild and evolve on their own? For the 2021 Hyundai Commission at the Tate Modern, artist Anicka Yi offered a vision of a new ecosystem of flying machines that are fully self-directed and interact with visitors using an artificial intelligence simulation that directs their behavior. The project asks us to imagine a world where artificial intelligence is neither on the verge of supplanting humanity nor a slave to it, but one where machines could co-exist alongside us in the physical world. In this talk we'll discuss the technical and creative challenges in bringing this work to life, and how we created an installation that challenged the public to think about machines in a new way.
Comics as Medicine: How Art and Design Can Heal
Graphic medicine—the intersection of comics and health—has proven to be a powerful tool for people struggling w/ mental health issues. Cartoonist and author Teresa Wong has experienced the power of graphic medicine first-hand with the publication of her graphic memoir, Dear Scarlet, which tells the story of her postpartum depression. The response to her book from new mothers helped Teresa discover the role words + images can play in helping people heal. MK Czerwiec, RN, MA is a pioneer in the field of graphic medicine who has studied how comics can empower patients and medical professionals alike. Join them in conversation w/ comics educator James Sturm, a Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellow to explore how comics + visual storytelling cultivates healing, connection, and empathy.
You’ve heard of the slow food movement. What about slow a future? Or a collaborative future? We often think of the future as going in one direction—towards progress and technology—but the reality is it’s not inevitable. What if the future wasn’t dialed up, but dialed down, requiring us to take more time, get ‘off the grid’ and connect with each other more. Sometimes the quickest way to more sustainable and efficient breakthroughs are analog, or relying on ancient tools, building through community, doing less with less. Director Rachel Goslins and the curatorial team behind the new Smithsonian “museum of the future” share new insights from inviting millions of people into a conversation about humanity’s next chapters, with a sense of hope and flexibility.
Jamel Shabazz & Peace to the Queen
Peace to the Queen, is a retrospective exhibition of works that spans the four-decade career of world renowned photographer Jamel Shabazz. On view at the Carver Museum & Cultural Center from February 4, 2022 - August 6, 2021, this exhibit features portraits of Black, Brown, and Indigenous women of color. Candid, artful, and intimate—this curated selection of images allows viewers to witness the joy, sovereign beauty, and wisdom of these women. This conversation will feature Ja'nell Ajani, curator of "Peace the Queen," Carre Adams, Director of CarverMuseumATX, and curator of the Bronx Museum where a concurrent exhibition of Shabazz's work will be on view. The conversation will focus on the womanist iconography that has been developed by Jamel Shabazz over the past 40-years.
Making it or Faking It? Protecting Creatives’ Work
Can you trust what you see? With the velocity of inauthentic content increasing, digital provenance is needed more than ever. Powerful creation, editing and distribution techniques have become ubiquitous — but here’s the rub: the same tools used to make and share legitimate content can also be used to create and spread fake images, video and other digital files — as well as subvert copyright and ownership in the emerging creator economy. For example, NFTs represent a huge opportunity for artists, but can also be an important way to protect creatives and collectors by verifying artwork authenticity. We’ll discuss the threat of disinformation, ways creators can protect their work, and how consumers can verify content authenticity. Knowing content origins ensures transparency and trust.
NFTs and the Metaverse, Art’s Digital Age
The rise of AR (augmented reality), VR (virtual reality) and NFTs (non-fungible tokens) in the art world is now playing a more significant role than ever as collectors and curators expect the need for a shift toward embracing technology and innovating on how we experience, discover and purchase artwork. With the utilization of digital solutions like online art events, virtual art advising and social media sales transactions during the lockdown, art industry insiders, artists and curators are wondering will those trends be here to stay? The steady growth of the online art market over the past decade has empowered independent artists by letting them hold the reins of their own career. Now, a new class of artists is rejecting the so-called “traditional path."
Join Us
Register to attend SXSW 2022 this March 11-20 in Austin, TX and online. Explore Conference sessions, Music Festival showcases, Film Festival screenings, world-class Exhibitions, and beyond on the SXSW Schedule.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and SXSW News for the latest event info and announcements.
Preview Image: 2022 SXSW Art Program, Server: Checks on The Block by Ciara Elle Bryant
02/10/2022