IV International Open Call for Digital Arts SMTH + MMMAD
SMTH in collaboration with MMMAD Festival, thanks to the support of Led&Go, launch the IV International Open Call for Digital Artists under the theme ‘Nescience or the state of not knowing’.
We are looking for digital artworks that explore collaboration, exchange and co- creation with artificial intelligences, exploring the uncertain, the boundaries between reality and fiction, the loss of control.
In the first edition of the call we looked for digital artworks that reflect on landscape in the post-digital age, the second edition focused on the shopping mall as cultural space and the third edition speculated on scales that defy the human eye. In this fourth edition we are looking for speculative pieces, fictions of reality, possible futures that influence the way we see the world.
In this edition we have the collaboration of the centres CC Xperience San Boi, CC Xperience Logroño, CC Maremágnum, CC Meridiano, CC Nueva Condomina, CC Príncipe Pío, CC L'Aljub, CC Vallsur, CC Zielo Shopping Pozuelo, CC La Gavia, CC Som Multiespai.
The call will be open from 23 October to 15 December 2024. A jury of experts will select the five best works, which will receive a prize of 1.500,00€ each and will be exhibited on the screens of the shopping centres from January to April 2025.
Through this call we seek to analyse the limits of technology itself, creating new scenarios, narratives or mythologies: to take a text generated by AI, pass it through a text-to-image generator, animate that image through a video model. Like a game of cadavre exquis, where with each iteration, the AI becomes more and more present as human control diminishes.
In this call we want to experiment with creating science fiction narratives from the image through digital artworks in which AI plays a role, whatever it may be, challenging the boundaries of the real and asking questions without the need to provide answers.
IMAGE 2024
In each edition of the open call we commission a digital artist to create a video work that encapsulates the theme of the competition. On this occasion, it was the Spanish duo Boldtron who interpreted the theme, presenting Ghost Frogs, a series of looping video works created with artificial intelligence, inspired by amphibians.
In 1935, L. Ron Hubbard published his first science-fiction novel Buckskin Brigades, but it was not until 150 titles later, with the publication of Dianetics, the trigger and origin of Scientology, that science fiction became real and what could have been just one more of his novels fractured the cultural, economic and social idiosyncrasies of thousands of people all over the planet.
Science fiction constructs possible scenarios through its narratives that can brush against reality, undoing its limits, introducing new possibilities (cyborg, trans- human, post-natural).
Tools such as artificial intelligence help us make visible that which does not yet have a body, but has the power to be; that which has no name, but has a prompt. A materiality that, at first literary, is transformed into vertices, pixels, sounds and data.
THEME
NESCIENCE OR THE STATE OF NOT KNOWING
JURY 1/3
JURY 1/3
BOLDTRON
Boldtron is the artistic name of two brothers, Xavier and Daniel Cardona, Barcelona-born artists specialising in 3D, CGI, VR and AI. After working as an illustrator and art director in Europe and Asia with more than twenty years of experience in the sector, Xavi returned to Barcelona to launch his own studio, PZZZA.
Boldtron’s work is based on experimentation, research and the development of new techniques. Its approach is organic and manual, although his production is purely digital. Boldtron seeks a constant creative and technological evolution by revisiting and reinventing its work, something that allows it to preserve its identity and bring something new to each creative collaboration.
JURY 2/3
CROSSLUCID
CROSSLUCID is an artist collective (est. 2018) that engages in highly collaborative cross-disciplinary projects in co-evolution with technology. Their work and research converges around the exploration of the self as a network; intimacy and the potential for pleasurable actualization through the digital sphere, and the re-imagination of our alliances with technology seen as part of a sympoietic biosphere and universal post-material consciousness. Through explorations spanning filmmaking, poetic Artificial Intelligence, multi-layered techniques of collage, assemblage and experience-led interventions they create scenarios and build experiential formats that instigate prototyping and rehearsing potential futures and progressing metamodern values.
JURY 3/3
JULIA KAGANSKIY
Julia Kaganskiy is a curator and cultural strategist working across art, science and technology. She is passionate about interdisciplinary collaboration, developing new cultural models, and re-imagining cultural institutions as inclusive spaces for artistic experimentation.
Since starting her career in 2008, she has been recognized as a leading voice in art and technology and helped launch several groundbreaking programs in the field, including The Creators Project (VICE/Intel) and NEW INC (New Museum). Her curatorial practice explores the potential of art as a key interlocutor of emerging science and technology.
EXHIBITION SPACES
12 SPACES // 8 CITIES
JURY 2/3
CROSSLUCID
CROSSLUCID is an artist collective (est. 2018) that engages in highly collaborative cross-disciplinary projects in co-evolution with technology. Their work and research converges around the exploration of the self as a network; intimacy and the potential for pleasurable actualization through the digital sphere, and the re-imagination of our alliances with technology seen as part of a sympoietic biosphere and universal post-material consciousness. Through explorations spanning filmmaking, poetic Artificial Intelligence, multi-layered techniques of collage, assemblage and experience-led interventions they create scenarios and build experiential formats that instigate prototyping and rehearsing potential futures and progressing metamodern values.
WINNERS
ANNAN SHAO
ANDREA MIKYSKA
FELINA H.DB.
SYBIL MONTET
THINH TRUONG
ANNAN SHAO
"Reptile Café" by Annan Shao explores the connection between human instinctive behaviors and the influence of beverage culture through reptilian symbolism and virtual drink branding. Drawing on the Triune Brain theory, which identifies the "reptilian brain" as the instinct-driven core shared with lower life forms like lizards, the project examines how our primal instincts are soothed by the fleeting pleasures of modern drink consumption.
By creating an immersive drinking space, the work reflects on how these instinctual patterns dominate behavior while encouraging contemplation of our ability to observe and transcend this system.
ANDREA MIKYSKA
Andrea Mikyska is a media artist working at the intersection of technology, nature, and dreams. Her work explores how adaptation, evolution, and mutation shape our perceptions of materiality, form, and time. By delving into the dynamic relationships between the organic and synthetic, Andrea aims to visualize speculative futures and reimagine hybrid identities within ecological systems.
"Second Body" by Andrea Mikyska explores the sea as a primordial space of transformation and rebirth, drawing on mythology, science, and symbolism to reflect fluidity, hybridity, and cycles of destruction and renewal. Inspired by mythological figures like Proteus and Tiamat, the project reimagines hybrid beings that merge the organic and synthetic through AI-driven processes. Grounded in Donna Haraway’s concept of “making kin,” it envisions speculative futures shaped by ecological and technological change. The ocean, as a symbol of boundlessness and coexistence, becomes a metaphor for adaptation and survival, offering a meditation on interconnectedness and renewal in a technologically mediated world.
FELINA H.DB.
Felina H.DB. specializes in the study of the intersection between virtual realities and physical reality. Her work deftly navigates the duality between brightness and darkness in the digital age. Her creative journey explores diverse interpretations of art, space-time, and emotional exhaustion in modern society. Her ever-morphing visual identity is deeply influenced by the twists and fluctuations of her life in combination with her passing obsessions. At the core of Felina H.DB.’s work lies a deep commitment to creating universes through digital tools. Her virtual persona acts as a vehicle of reverie, connecting desire with materiality. Through meticulous material exploration, she seeks to shed light on how the physical and digital realms intertwine, shaping contemporary perceptions and experiences of technology.
"YEARN" by Felina Hernández del Barrio explores a sentimental relationship between the artist and an AI-generated character, embodying her desires through a fusion of artificial personalities. Reflecting on her reliance on fictional realities as a form of escape, the piece examines themes of emotional deprivation, social behavior, and modern isolation. By blending physicality and computational fantasy, the artist critiques the interplay between desire’s light and dark aspects, portraying love as a machine-driven response to emotional emptiness and a perpetual digital construct countering physical loneliness.
SYBIL MONTET
Sybil Montet is a French artist and 3D director. Her work explores the occult potentials of emerging technologies and their influence on the collective unconscious through forms and phantasms. She develops a fictional and critical ecosystem inspired by science fiction and fantasy, using CGI, sculpture, and painting, while also exploring experimental applications of AI. After studying high jewelry at the École Boulle and earning a degree in special effects at SAE Paris, she taught herself CGI and digital sculpture. She runs her own creative studio as a 3D artist and produces commercial works for the theater, fashion, and music industries. Between 2015 & 2020, she was active as core.pan, a French-Czech artist duo. She is currently working on new moving image, paintings and sculpture commissions for upcoming presentations in Europe, Asia & the US.
"Geomancy" by Sybil Montet is an experimental sci-fi film and interactive installation that uses AI and real-time weather data to explore the relationship between humanity, technology, and Earth's natural systems. Driven by a custom AI algorithm, the film transforms global environmental patterns into speculative, hyperreal imagery, blending advanced CGI with machine intelligence. For Nescience, it adapts into a curated cinematic experience, reflecting on geoengineering, climate instability, and humanity's role within Earth's dynamic systems. Merging philosophical inquiry with cutting-edge digital aesthetics, it invites viewers into a speculative world of interconnectedness and transformation.
THINH TRUONG
Thinh Truong is a Vietnamese Barcelona-based multidisciplinary creative exploring the interplay of identity, memory, and technology in a post-natural world. His practice captures the memories of people, cultures, places, and everything in between—whether living or non-living. At the intersection of art, technology, and social science, Thinh transforms these stories into imaginative and meaningful experiences, giving them a voice that resonates deeply. Rooted in Southeast Asian heritage and global narratives, his work draws inspiration from neuroscience, cultural hybridity, and the fluid boundaries between the natural and artificial. As he says, "even the quietest stone has a tale to tell—if only you know how to listen." Through immersive and conceptual systems, Thinh invites audiences to engage with evolving, adaptive worlds that challenge conventional notions of time, space, and meaning.
"The Horse" by Thinh Truong is an AI artwork exploring memory as a fluid, evolving entity within the latent space, where the essence of a horse transcends its biological form to transform into hybrid species that blend equine identity with traits from other creatures. Influenced by "mnemonic improvisation," the work reimagines memory as an adaptive ecology, questioning what it means to exist in a digital realm where identity is encoded in data rather than physicality. It invites viewers to reflect on evolution driven by artistic intent and algorithmic processes, redefining life, transformation, and the essence of being.
