DKK 3 million from Nordic Culture Fund to HYBRID MATTERS

04.06.14 | News
The Nordic Culture Fund has awarded DKK 3 million to HYBRID MATTERS, a digital art project that explores the fusion of the digital, the technological and the organic.

The Finnish Society of Bioart, the artist co-operative Forum Box, the IT University of Copenhagen, the Swedish artists/researchers Åsa Ståhl and Kristina Lindström and Kunsthall Grenland in Telemark have been selected as recipients of the NORDIC CULTURAL EVENT OF THE YEAR – DIGITAL 2015–16.

“More and more artists are working digitally, and many have long international experience. It is time that we focus on this art form at Nordic level. The Fund’s substantial support provides extraordinary opportunities for Nordic artists to work together on something greater than they would be capable of achieving in their respective Nordic countries” says Helgí Hjörvar MP (Iceland), chair of the Nordic Culture Fund.

“The fact that the Fund is sending out such a strong signal about digital art is amazing. People really will sit up and take notice and it will open more doors in the art world. The size of the grant will facilitate in-depth work on a project capable of spreading from the Nordic Region to the international scene,” artist and teacher Laura Beloff of the IT University said about the significance of receiving the Fund’s grant.

HYBRID MATTERS investigates and explores how digital technologies create new models of communication and forge new kinds of relationships between the various actors in a “hybrid ecology”.

Digital technology is used not only in digital art, but in many contemporary and emerging art forms. The artistic use and interpretation of technology can be used both to critique science and to present scientific ideas to a wider population. The institutions and individuals involved in this project have amassed many years of practical experience, and have a natural affinity for digital technology and art. For them, digital technology is the natural choice to explore, develop and disseminate their project.

The adjudication committee said of its nomination:

“‘Hybrid Matters’ promises to use art in a fascinating way in order to explore current and future digital developments and show how the relationship between humankind, nature and the environment changes as our physical/organic reality and the virtual merge together ever more completely.

The committee reviewed the project proposal with great interest, as the subject has a clearly visible topicality, rests on a strong conceptual foundation and has high artistic ambitions. Bioart is an exciting contemporary art field that is constantly evolving.

The committee believes that ‘Hybrid Matters’ has the potential to make considerable waves among artists and experts, whose knowledge and artistic practice will be linked together by the project, but also among the general public, through participation in ‘arts & science workshops’ and via an online platform, the results of which will later form part of an exhibition that will tour the Nordic Region.

The project partners – the Finnish Society of Bioart, the artist co-operative Forum Box, Kunsthall Grenland (Norway), the Swedish artists Å+K and the IT University in Copenhagen – have come together based on their many years of experience in digital technology and art, and will work to dissolve the boundary between scientists and artists.”

This is the sixth time that the Nordic Culture Fund has awarded millions of kroner to the NORDIC CULTURAL EVENT OF THE YEAR, the aim of which is to increase awareness of cultural co-operation. This extraordinary grant is awarded every other year.