BIAN 2018 - JUNE 29 TO AUGUST 05

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The 4rd edition of the International Digital Art Biennial (BIAN).

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AUTOMATA 3 – Sing the Body Electric is part of a three-year cycle that started in 2016 with Art Made by Machines for Machines. Three years ago, the AUTOMATA cycle began, proposing an in-depth re ection on the relationship of technology to the world around it through the prism of contemporary art. For the 4th edition of the IDAB and the closing year of the cycle, our connection to technology is more central than ever. While in past editions we developed a portrait of the current and future digital environment, the 2018 edition shifts the focus back to people.

AUTOMATA - Sing the Body Electric takes a gentle, critical, curious look at our involvement with and responsibility for technology and its consequences. It considers our place as human beings, from our corporeality to our decisions about innovations pushed to their limits, in a society that embraces the idea of “ever further, ever stronger.”

The theme of this edition refers to the Walt Whitman poem I Sing the Body Electric (1855). In praise of physicality, the author questions the soul, the electried body and how these parts interact implicitly or explicitly in relationships of respect or exploitation. Centuries ago, Walt Whitman, wrote an ode to the body in its broadest sense. He considers presence, movement, the soul and, in particular, living, not through attitude, but through bodily reality and, therefore, sensation.

In an era of augmented bodies, avatars, robotization, real and virtual wars, climate change and growing inequality – all dystopian scenarios that are becoming reality – our relationship to the body and our freedom to Be are fundamental, and our connections with others are essential more than ever. Beyond the reality of our would-be augmented bodies, in the anthropocene era, we need to question our relationship with technology and its impact on nature. What if technology enabled this awareness and a return to ourselves ? What if robots were a way to savour our impermanence ? What if, in 2018, AUTOMATA - Sing the Body Electric were a necessity, a survival imperative, perhaps a reconciliation to engage as a solution for tomorrow ?

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The 4rd edition of the International Digital Art Biennial :

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• 1 opening with more than 1,200 people

• 21 immersive, robotic and participative work

• 16 international artists

• 4 Quebec artists

• 1 welcome place and partner of the major exhibition in the contemporary art

• 4108 visitors

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