ArtFutura 1997
The Future of the Future
15 – 19 October / Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid
David Byrne, Arthur Kroker, Marylouse Kroker, Max More, Vicente Verdú, Rebecca Allen, Javi Navarro, Miguel Fuertes (IL&M), René Berger
The 1997 edition was perhaps the most speculative of all the editions that have taken place. There were to be 1,000 days to the year 2000 and Antonio Mayo, one of the curators, wrote:
“When the curtain opens onto the Third Millennium, we will find ourselves in a world or cyberworld that we have never dreamed of. What is the future? Where is it? And, above all, what will it have in store for us? What will the museums of next century be like? Will we use virtual reality to visit the new galleries? Will interactivity be normal in works of art? How far will artificial life have been taken?”.
ArtFutura 97, presented “The Future of the Future”, a look into the exhibiting forms of the 21st century which included “The Ghost Bush”, a work based on artificial life by Rebecca Allen and the project “Virtual Gallery” by Narcís and Roc Parés. There were also works by Ipsum Planet, Virtual Graphics, Javi Navarro, Franc Aleu and the exhibition “Stairway to Heaven” by David Byrne with twelve immense light boxes that completely filled the Saloon of Columns at the Círculo de Bellas Artes.
The conferences titled “Utopias for the 21st century” included debates with Arthur Kroker, Max More, Vicente Verdú, René Berger and Leo Ferreira. And the audiovisual program was completed with Cine Futura and the showing of films related to digital culture.
In the same year, ArtFutura presented an exhibition in the Cultural Center Itaú in Sao Paulo, Brasil. There was a cycle of conferences that included the participation of Chico MacMurtrie who installed his “Rope Climber” on the exterior of the building, a skyscraper on Avenida Paulista. The robot went up and down constantly for days over a height of more than 150 meters.
“For me, many things, not just art, have their greatest power to move and effect one deeply when we are not sure what they are, or what their purpose is“.
David Byrne
“The Web is the digital mirror that reflects back to our nomadic bodies its fate as it is externalized in a world of artificial intelligence, recombinant genes and spliced data streams“.
Arthur and Marilouise Kroker
“The self cannot be completely separated, functionally, from its environment. The virtual worlds of tomorrow will allow us to shape our environments in ways impossible in the physical world”.
Max More
“Things work best when there is a bit of ambiguity, a bit of mystery. In art and advertising as in life”.
David Byrne
