November 13—December 1, 2024, Yerevan, Armenia
CYLAND MediaArtLab is pleased to announce the sixteenth edition of the International Media Art Festival CYFEST: Archive of Feelings. A Journey.
Opening Program
November 13, 7 pm: Hammettlogue world premiere — an opera for video and voice by Phill Niblock and Katherine Liberovskaya, featuring mezzo-soprano Loré Lixenberg and bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood at the State Philharmonia of Armenia.
November 14, 7 pm: Opening of Markos Grigorian's Performative Metaphors at ICA Yerevan.
November 15, 7 pm: Tribute Concert for Phill Niblock (1933–2024), featuring Katherine Liberovskaya, Anna Clementi, Biliana Voutchkova, and Davide Aiden Capobianco at the State Philharmonia of Armenia.
November 16, 6 pm: Opening of CYFEST 16: Archive of Feelings. A Journey at HayArt Centre.
November 17, 6 pm: Opening of CYFEST 16: Archive of Feelings. A Journey at Yerevan Botanical Garden.
November 18, 6 pm: Presentation and screening of Voyage Video Program (curated by Gabriel V. Soucheyre) and Beyond Interfaces: Taiwanese Video Program (curated by Mu Tuan) at Mirzoyan Library.
November 19, 6 pm: Presentation and screening of the CYLAND Video Archive Program (curated by Victoria Ilyushkina) at Varpet.
CYFEST 16: Archive of Feelings. A Journey is an expansive audit of relationships between the intimate realm of emotions and memories and technological advancement. How do new technologies shape, mediate, and «archive» emotions? In what ways does technology influence our emotional experience and the way it is expressed and remembered? Can we work with technologies within larger artistic, social, and cultural frameworks? And how can contemporary art and culture contribute to a more diverse future and environments that are neither technocratically mastered nor reductionistic? Through the contribution of internationally renowned artists, curators, and theorists, CYFEST 16 will address these questions from various angles while transforming them into installations, multimedia objects, performances, video, concerts, educational events, and a new, intriguing visitors’ experience.
The 16th CYFEST is dedicated to honoring the legacy of Phill Niblock (October 2, 1933 – January 8, 2024), an influential artist, experimental composer, filmmaker, and photographer. Since 2010, he has been a regular contributor to CYFEST and has had a significant impact on how we experience, relate to, and mediate contemporary cultures. The festival will commence with the premiere of an avant-garde opera project for video and voice titled “Hammettlogue,” at The State Philharmonia of Armenia followed by a Tribute Concert at the Arno Babajanyan Hall. Both events are co-organized by artist and curator Katherine Liberovskaya, Niblock’s partner of the last 22 years.
The main projects of the festival will be held at several prominent cultural venues in Yerevan, including the HayArt Centre and the Yerevan Botanical Garden. Both exhibitions will explore the contradictions and connections between personal memories and technology. They will delve into the space where we recognize our responsibility to human nature and demonstrate how art and culture can help shape our future while preserving our essential emotions and feelings.
The CYFEST 16 Sound Program presents a curated selection of works by artists known for their distinctive approach to the intersection of sound, audio, music, and non-visual artistic expressions. The program encompasses installations and a performance series, fostering an environment for artists and audiences to delve into the realms of sound exploration. This year's program pays homage to Phill Niblock and features artists who share a personal connection with him, including Hans Tammen, Shelley Hirsch, and Thomas Ankersmit. Moreover, the program showcases emerging experimental artists Elina Bolshenkova, stackedplot, Satyarth Mishra Sharma, and Robert Poghosyan. Notably, the program spotlights TELLUS, the Audio Cassette Magazine, a pioneering experimental initiative that utilized audio cassettes to disseminate no wave music and audio art. Among the esteemed contributors to TELLUS are Sonic Youth, Louise Lawler, Richard Prince, David Wojnarowicz, Michael Gira, Merzbow, Joseph Beuys, Kurt Schwitters, Lawrence Weiner, George Brecht, Christian Boltanski, and George Maciunas. The program's curators are Sergei Komarov and Lidiia Griaznova.
Video has been an integral part of CYFEST festivals since 2007. For 2024, four collaborators have been invited to curate a video program, each interwoven with the exhibition and expressing its theme in cinematic form. Mu Tuan, an independent curator and visual artist based in Taipei, has assembled a program featuring Taiwanese artists with diverse perspectives on memory, cartography, alchemy, nostalgia, virtual relationships, and gaming. Gabriel V. Soucheyre, the artistic director at VIDEOFORMES, Hybrid and Digital International Arts Festival in France, has shaped a program that provides a platform for discussing the future of humanity and the contradictions of the contemporary human condition. Victoria Ilyushkina, curator of the CYLAND Video Archive, has created a selection of videos that explore how artists preserve, understand, and transform different types of information: individual, collective, historical, socio-cultural, bio- and technological, in both analog and digital formats. Seungah Lee, director of Urban Art Lab in Seoul, has gathered contemporary Korean artists in a project exploring the technology and language of VR and video. The video program will take place at Mirzoyan Library and Varpet, while the VR works are available within the main exhibition venue at HayArt Centre.
One of the special projects at this year's festival is an exhibition featuring the work of Markos Grigorian, an Iranian-Armenian and American artist known as a pioneer of Iranian modern art. The exhibition Performative Metaphors, curated by Ruben Arevshatyan, will be held at the ICA Yerevan. It aims to showcase the diverse and rich history of Markos Grigorian's artistic career, the complexity and depth of his life story, his involvement in multiple cultural environments, and the nuanced transitions across different periods.
The 16th edition of the festival will take place in Yerevan, Armenia, from November 13 to December 1, 2024. It will feature 65 artists from around the world. This year's comprehensive program aims to create a platform for discussing a wide range of art forms and experimental creative strategies, transforming the city into a forum for exploring contemporary cultures.
Curators
Anna Frants, Elena Gubanova, Victoria Ilyushkina, Alexandra Dementieva, Sergei Komarov, Silvia Burini, Lidiia Griaznova, Seungah Lee, Jadwiga Charzynska, Gabriel V. Soucheyre, Mu Tuan, Isabella Indolfi, Edgar Amroyan, Katherine Liberovskaya, Marine Karoyan.
Artists
Jama Adilov, Thomas Ankersmit, Maria Arendt, AUDINT, Daria Belova, Liudmila Belova, Mattia Bioli, Elina Bolshenkova, broken vows (Alexey Grachev), CAA (CYLAND Audio Archive), Davide Aiden Capobianco, Chen Chen, Yen-Cheng Chen, Anna Clementi, Brecht De Cock, Úrsula San Cristóbal, Lyudmila Davydova, Liza Dandy, Alexandra Dementieva, Francesca Fini, Anna Frants, Wei Gao, Gagik Ghazareh, Alexey Grachev, Styopa Grigoryan, Elena Gubanova & Ivan Govorkov, Margot Guillemot & Chiehsen Chiu, Gysin–Vanetti, G.H. Hovagimyan, Regina Hübner, Nicholas Isherwood, Heejeong Jeong, Poyuan Juan, Kai Lab, Anna Kim, Jeong Han Kim, Kira Kim, Jiun-Ting Lai, YeSeung Lee, Katherine Liberovskaya and Phill Niblock, JML (José Man Lius), Loré Lixenberg, lololol (Xia Lin & Sheryl Cheung), Lev Manovich, Tigran Martirosyan, Anna Martynenko, Tuan Mu, Mariam Papoyan, Matteo Polato, Roberto Pugliese, Katarzyna Oliwia Serkowska, Satyarth Mishra Sharma & Robert Poghosyan, Raphaele Shirley, Dmitriy Shishov, Hugo Solís García, stackedplot (Alexander Bochkov and Matvei Peshkov), Studio MBUS703 (Chiwook Nho), Hans Tammen and Shelley Hirsch, Ya-Lun Tao, TELLUS, the Audio Cassette Magazine, Alain Thibault, Adam Vackar, Eric Vernhes, Biliana Voutchkova, Mathieu Zurstrassen.
About CYFEST
CYFEST, one of the biggest international media art festivals in Eastern Europe, was founded by a group of independent artists and curators in 2007. Since its inception in 2007, CYFEST’s main concerns have been to examine the dialogue between various visual languages and technology cultures, and thus to explore a way of commoning with both art professionals and scientific communities. CYFEST unites artists, curators, educators, engineers, programmers, and media activists all over the world, and creates a platform for mapping, mediation, and documentation of new media art on different regional and international levels. CYFEST is one of the world’s few nomadic cultural events: throughout the year, festival projects are presented at leading cultural institutions around the world. Each year, the festival program includes several exhibition projects, sound art, video and educational programs.
CYFEST 16 is organized by CYLAND International MediaArtLab. The project's general sponsor is One Market Data.
