.art Domains x CADAF Online

The current pandemic has set the stage for an unprecedented shift toward the online. As a platform striving to create synergy between the worlds of art and tech, the .art Domains registry is thrilled to serve as CADAF’s innovation partner. .art Domains and its digital tools help the creative community to benefit from advancements in the tech industry, making online work more accessible, transparent and safe.

So what is CADAF?

CADAF is the only art fair solely dedicated to contemporary & digital art. With previous editions held in New York and Miami, this year the fair transitions online, reflecting a global trend in light of COVID-19. CADAF Online will launch on June 25th at 10:00 EST (15:00 London time) and run for four days, providing an exhibition platform for digital artists, galleries and projects from all over the world. 

We’re delighted to have the ongoing support of .art for our first edition of CADAF Online. With the art world converting to the online realm during this pandemic, we’re eager to highlight .art’s unshakable commitment to developing digital products for the market which embrace the most exciting developments in technology. 

Elena Zavelev, Founder, CADAF

.art Domains: cultural programming

During CADAF Online there will be an extensive online cultural program of press events, workshops and talks. 

.art Domains present: Workshop by Paddy Johnson on five common misperceptions about artist statements

As part of the program, .art is presenting an artist workshop by renowned new media curator and art critic Paddy Johnson. Paddy Johnson is New York-based art critic, blogger, curator and a writer for publications like CNN, The New York Times, and New York Magazine. Relying on her two decades of experience in the art world, she teaches workshops that allow artists to learn the craft of describing their artwork. During the workshop Paddy will sum up the five common misperceptions about artist statements, which is an integral part of creative branding. 

The workshop will be held on the 26th and 27th of June at 12:00 New York (EST) / 17:00 London (BST) / 18:00 Paris (CEST). Workshop recording will be available after the fair on .art Domains YouTube channel. 

.art Domains present: CONVERSATION –  Wemakemoney.art: Exit Through the Appstore 

.art Domains will be speaking to Tsila Hassine, Yoav Lifshitz and Gabriel S Moses (ArtUp Nation) about blurring the boundaries between artistic action and market disruption.

ArtUp Nation is an international collective working on blurring the boundaries between artistic action and market disruption. Established In early 2019 as a result of the changing conditions of art production and socio-technological reality, they have been transforming their post-critical aesthetics into high growth startup companies aimed at the global economy. 

The talk will be held LIVE on the 28th of June at 10:00 New York (EST) / 15:00 London (BST) / 16:00 Tel Aviv (CEST) 

The .art booth

The .art booth is a carefully curated selection, which acts as a response to today’s collapse in the physical universe and manifests the necessary emergence of a re-envisioned digital future. Viewers will be able to browse across 25 pages and the works featured will include:

• An online exhibit The Tree of Life presented by bitforms gallery 
• Winners of the .art Open Call
• The international debut of the ArtUp Escalator
• A curatorial selection by .art 

 The Tree of Life presented by bitforms gallery

bitforms gallery will showcase an online exhibition titled The Tree of Life, curated by Claudia Hart. The exhibition features the work of Mark Dorf, Claudia Hart, Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn, Kurt Hentschlaeger, Gary Hill, Sara Ludy, Quayola, Shi Zheng, and Marina Zurkow.

Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn, The Endless Forest, 2006/2020-ongoing, Online multiplayer game, Courtesy of bitforms gallery nyc

The Tree of Life emerged when artist Claudia Hart sifted through her ancient hard drives in the course of updating her website. Her archiving process included much reminiscing and remembering, inviting Hart to ruminate on the speed of time, history, aging, and technology’s unrelenting increase of resolution in the context of the quarantine, waiting for the passing of Covid-19. This exhibition features artworks that express the relativity of perception and lived experiences, in parallel to Hart’s own processes. The related videos and animations emphasize the central motif of a tree, using it as a symbol for the overlapping and intertwined unfoldings of time. 

The Tree of Life is made in collaboration with the artist Shi Zheng, who has created the website to house this exhibition as his own visual and interactive narrative interwoven with Hart’s text. 

.art Open Call

As part of .art Domains x CADAF Online, an Open Call took place among the members of the .art community. After reviewing dozens of applications, an exciting cohort of digital artists was selected. Visitors will be able to explore the variety of mediums that the artists used, below is a sneak peak of the work they will present.  

Robert Richardson has graphic art in collections of the British Museum and the Australian National Gallery. Working in various media, he will present four artworks that were produced using vector software and show the influences of Constructivism and Minimalism. Self-taught digital artist Bruce Graham will showcase his HOMINIDS series ​of sculpture studies that are hosted on a .art domain with the same name. Bruce is known to create art eco-systems on the .art domain, labelling his new series with an accompanying web url. Rob Eberle will present his Algorithmic Art, which involves manipulated computationally assisted forms and a Blockchain integration. Anna Püschel will present Pieter, a portrait for a friend that has been manipulated in a sound engineering programme.

Raf Reyes, Triptych

Another Open Call finalist Raf Reyes is a young self-taught artist who has experienced a quick rise to fame on social networks. He explores subconscious spaces via his signature mixture of traditional vs. modern art techniques. For the past year until now, his main objective has been to create or experiment art on a daily basis, using all the knowledge and techniques available surrounding the surreal art sphere. 

Artist, museum curator and an engineer Boris Oicherman is presenting single-page website for simulation of the ganzfeld effect. In his statement he states that “of all Western professions, artists are the only ones who can attach their work to any other practice, absorb themselves into any other discipline. The reverse is also true: today, any practice can become art.”

Stepan Ryabchenko, «Electronic Winds» (2015 – 2018), Photo by Sergey Ilyin

Stepan Ryabchenko is a leading Ukrainian new media artist and Art Laboratory chief curator. He is presenting a video work from the Electronic Winds series, commenting “The wind is invisible, but we can feel it, hear it and observe its actions. In addition to physical laws, it has its own mythological poetics, and it is a hero of fairy tales and the god of myths. I transferred this image to a virtual plane, in which I visualized portraits of Electronic Winds that permeate the space of new times.”

Richard van Balen is a software artist and also a Biologist with specializations in Neurology, Quantitative Pathology and Medical Informatics. Drawing from his cross discipline expertise he will showcase an artistic, almost hypnotic, mobile 3D app “MagicArt Relax” with the aim to help the world with stress reduction.

Artist Debbie YJ Lin is interested in site specific work focused on the architecture of human sound and languages. She shares thoughts on her project and taking part in CADAF Online:

“When I created gather.art I envisioned a simple space humans could virtually gather and share, heal and listen. While only in its infancy, it will always be a work in progress, similar to art, ourselves and the society. But no one could quite fathom the global climate we have been asked to withstand. And perhaps now, more than ever, we need to gather every resource that is conducive to the restoration of the human condition and uplift one another. I would imagine the .ART x CADAF partnership could be very much a contributing glimmer, and I am grateful to participate»

Ta(r)dino 6 Art Platform fills in the niche in providing art professionals from Azerbaijan and beyond with the opportunity to explore their ideas in depth. The platform presents The Choice, a virtual media installation by Hypnotica and Unknown territory by Shalala Salamzadeh that displays a 3D model of a non-existent virtual city populated by “friends” from social networks.

The international debut of the ArtUp Escalator

In addition to the live talk, ArtUp Nation will debut within the .art booth the ArtUp Escalator: an international, mentor-based program with an innovative curriculum. The 2020 ArtUp Escalator program provides a special emphasis on the working conditions of crisis-era artists. Their installation at the .art booth will provide additional information and contact point for artists and entrepreneurs interested in learning more.

ArtUp Nation Members are: Tsila Hassine (CIA Chief Industry Artist), Carmel Barne Brezner Jonas (CPA Chief Performance Artist), Yoav Lifshitz (CSA Chief Strategy Artist), Gabriel S Moses (3XCD Chief Creative Content Development, Derailing, and Deflection), Gözde Güngör (M.COE Ms. Chief Of Ethics).

A curatorial selection by .art

Lior Zalmanson is a writer and artist whose research focuses on social media, pricing of information products, user-generated content. In his work, showcased at CADAF, he addressed the theme of exponentially growing unemployment, when many people are turning to the gig economy: short-term jobs through computer platforms such as performing image identification, content summaries, and answering questionnaires.

Brooklyn Pakathi, _💎🍀💝🌸🍀💎 (2017)

Brooklyn Pakathi focuses on of self-dialogue manifested through the often complex relationship with digital anxieties of being. The creation of the work, titled  _💎🍀💝🌸🍀💎, reflects sequences of spiral phyllotaxis often found in botany and replaces the visual signifiers of seeds, leaves and stems with digital local scenic objects, namely emojis.

Alex Anikina presents “Non-Player Character”, a procedural film made with Unity game engine. The main character of “Non-Player Character” is based on a mechanical tiger made for Sultan Tipu of Mysore, India in the late 18th century.

Patrick Meagher, Artesian Coordinates (Cumulative Museum Room 001), 2020

Patrick Meagher’s “Artesian Coordinates (Cumulative Museum Room 001), 2020”  is a collaborative video and image based on a collage by Meagher from 2018. The image and title reference Descartes’ 3D globe notion of Cartesian coordinates, artesian water, and art concepts of exploring words and thought patterns, such as Joseph Beuys’ ‘Ja, Ja, Ja Ne, Ne, Ne’ and Warholian obfuscation and clarity in his videos and interviews.

Ruth Patir employs new technologies for rethinking narratives, contemplating gender paradigms and exploring the aesthetics of power. In the short video diary “A Premature Ballad to the End of an Epidemic” one is invited to imagine the life and lust of house appliances. Made during quarantine they share their feelings of longing to the intimate days of enclosure.

Protey Temen is researching the mystical and scientific modern environment and analyzing it with the language of contemporary art. The artwork “Queens and Princes” is an audio-visual fairytale migrating from one instagram account to another. The plot is dedicated to the reconstruction of former systems of management, and reinventing values for a future oriented cultural benefits.

In her work “digital dreams / digital souls” Carly Whitaker addresses the theme of online dreaming – imagining different lives, meeting new people, changing our worlds and creating new ones.We spend so many hours online every day, and increasingly so. The artwork asks what happens to these digital dreams and digital souls that exist online, where do they go?

Aleksei Taruts is a transmedia artist whose practice embraces primarily performative and situational works as well as mixed media installations. For .art Domains x CADAF he presents the work “Golden Hits” – performance for smartphone, self-recorded sleep talking event & audio documentation of three hundred smartphone hits.

Nick Koro, London-based digital artist, is reinventing suprematism through modern mediums & technologies and cross-breeds it with current trends and concepts. “AR Suprematist Composition 1.1” installation, presented at CADAF, is based on Malevich’s original 1915 Suprematist composition. It draws together quotes made by art critics and fictional statements about the modern use of consumer technologies.

How to join?

CADAF Online is available for free and runs between 25th – 28th of June 2020. However, prior registration is required as the platform will have limited spaces. You can RSVP here: https://cadaf.art