Shota Yamauchi (JP), Achilles and the tortoise, 2016, 14:05

Achilles and the tortoise tries to capture how to perceive reality through the world seen from an Iphone. The "avatar" appearing in the Pokémon GO app and on Google Maps is becoming a temporary body of the author. The work refers to one of the so-called Zeno’s paradoxes devised by the Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea, a disciple of Parmenides. These are a set of philosophical problems concerning the understanding of time and space; they were to prove that all motion in the world is just an illusion. The point of the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise is that in a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead. 

Shota Yamauchi (JP), born in 1992, a Japanese intermedia artist. He studied new media in the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts. He is the laureate of many awards, among others, “Tomoya Watanabe awards” at 20th Campus Genius Award (2015), MEC Award 2015, Takamatsu Media Art Festival (2015), Media Practice (2016), Culture and Arts Award “Ikuo Hirayama awards” (2016) and Tokyo Wonder Wall Award (2016). His works have been twice presented in Poland: in Wroclaw at the “Synthetic nature” exhibition within the Eco Expanded City project (2016), and in Warsaw at the “moths, crabs, fluids” exhibition in the Koszyki Hall (2016). He lives and works in Yokohama. 

Andy Graydon (US), Clean Room Light Trap, 2016, 15:00

Clean Room Light Trap follows two different processes of technical construction: a figure on the left of screen builds telescope parts in the “clean room” at the headquarters of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii; on the right, an entomologist builds a “light trap” to attract nocturnal insects for study. The tension between natural and introduced species is contrasted with the Hawaiian debate over the place of observatories on their islands’ sacred mountains. Through an intensive strobing alternation, the two images form a single dynamic space that construct a third image, hovering in the intervals of the flicker. A dataization of the natural sounds of both environments provides a soundscape both cosmic and microscopic.  

Andy Graydon (US), born in 1971, an American artist who’s work focuses on absence and displacement. He received his MFA in Radio, Television, and Film from Northwestern University. Including sound works, films, media installations, photographs and performances, Graydon’s works have been exhibited internationally, including the New Museum, Art in General, and Participant Inc. (all New York), the Berlinische Galerie (Berlin), the Frye Museum (Seattle), the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (Salt Lake City), Kunsthalle Exnergasse (Vienna), the Honolulu Museum of Art (Hawaii), the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture (Hong Kong & Shenzhen), and Galerie Stadtpark (Krems, Austria). Awards include a Rhizome Commission and grants from the Princess Grace Foundation and the Laila Twigg-Smith Art Fund. He has been artist in residence at the NKD Norwegian Artists’ Center, Artist-in-Residence Niederösterreich in Austria, Q-O2 in Belgium and the Center for Computer Music at Brooklyn College. He is currently based in Berlin.

Elena Artemenko (RU), Soft power, 2016, 10:09 

Soft power is a perverse metaphor of power; it visualizes two types of movements: the “soft” gestures of the authority and the ingratiating, but precise gestures of the subordinate. The props in the video – the weapons, the flag and the hand – are made of silicon, i.e. the material most similar to human flesh. The mechanical sound of the alto, the perfectly choreographed and preconceived cyclical actions of the characters resemble creepy parade of force that gradually turns into chaos.  Elena Artemenko (RU), born in 1988, graduated from the Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia, Video and Media Art department (2013). She works with video, sculpture and installations. She was nominated to the Kandinsky Prize (2012, 2013 and 2014), and won 1st Prize on Foresight Filmfestival in Halle (Saale, Germany, 2016), Best Russian Video Prize (2016) and an honourable jury mention at the International Video Art Festival “Now&After” (2014); she’s also the winner of the Sharjah Art Foundation Production program (2014). She participated in the Alternative Film/Video Festival (2016), Internationale Kurzfilmwoche Regensburg (2015), European Media Art Festival (2014) and other international festivals and exhibitions of contemporary art in Russia, Germany, Iran, Norway, Sweden, Serbia, France, Austria, Cuba and United Kingdom. She lives and works in Moscow.