Digital Georgia is a research article where I will cover contemporary, new media projects, artists, and platforms that are shaping the digital arts climate in Georgia. The article will be updated and expanded with each new entry, so keep coming back.
In-Between Conditions
In-between Conditions is a Georgian independent, transdisciplinary platform of media art, technologies, science and hybrid forms of contemporary culture. Its curatorial team consists of Khatia Tchokhonelidze, Vato Urushadze, Giorgi Spanderashvili. Former is also a founding member of the Georgian Video art portal Videoimage.
The need for that kind of platform as curators mention was a gap between technological and artistic process in Georgia. Officially, there is a new media department at the State Art Academy in Tbilisi, but it is very technical and hardly touches artistic practices and art theories.
We [new media scene] lack technical skills quite a lot! There are a lot of artists with very interesting ideas. But they do hardly have any clue how to realize them technically.
Khatia Tchokhonelidze
The 1st show “In-Between Conditions” took place at KHIDI in December 2018. The Khidi Contemporary Art Space is a multidisciplinary exhibition space on the 3rd floor of the famous club in Tbilisi. It aims to create a unique junction between electronic music and different artistic practices. The multidisciplinary exhibition was a reflection on the local context. It raised questions about daily life, new media art in the Georgian context, and interrelationship with the current sociopolitical discourse. 18 works captured sociopolitical impulses that had been left beyond recognition.
It was a checkpoint, a step towards contextualizing the situation of new media art in Georgia. After the exhibition was over, curators established a platform under the same name “In-Between Conditions”. They decided to focus on the development of new media art and interdisciplinary art practices.
It was quite logical, needed, and timely to think about new media art. After the creation of a video art archive, the situation regarding new media art and technologies was still very pure in the country.
Giorgi Spanderashvili
“Post.Digital.Dreams” was the 2nd big project that happened in summer 2019. It took place at 3 different venues in Tbilisi and it encompassed 23 works. Most of the works were commissioned and co-produced by “In-Between Conditions”.
The core idea of the exhibition was articulated in a fictional/poetic manner. There are lots of mistakes in the text but they are left intentionally. Curators wanted to keep the English translation as close as possible to the Georgian version.
With this show, curators wanted to go further and reach out not only for artists but to practitioners from other disciplines and backgrounds as well. That would help to stimulate science and set the atmosphere for new ideas and collaboration. Both local and international open calls were conducted and the results were positively overwhelming.
During the co-production phase, coordination with the authors happened on a regular basis. There were people from different fields: film industry, literature, editing. It was a very productive, interesting, and important process. The field of new media art was new and sometimes people had very superficial ideas regarding how to display their work.
It is worth mentioning the role of the German institutions. 5 Georgian new media artists who were participating in the show, are affiliated with different German Higher Education Institutions. They started shaping the new media scene alongside their education. German cultural cooperation pretty much defines the development of New Media Art in Georgia.
Web-exhibition “Man With a Webcam | Digital Oases” is a new online exhibition. Partnered with Goethe Institute Georgia, the project brings together 33 participating artists from different disciplines. The exhibition studies the creative possibilities and boundaries of the web as a medium and space in relation to existing territorial and global contexts.
Visit “Man With a Webcam | Digital Oases” http://digitaloases.space/en
Website of the organization http://www.inbetween.media/
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If you are interested in electronic music, check my post on GLACIER MUSIC. The Event was organized by Goethe-Institut with artists such as Robert Lippok (Germany), Lillevan (Germany), Anushka Chkeidze (Georgia), Hayk Karoyi Karapetyan (Armenia), Eto Gelashvili (Georgia). It was a nomad project that also was showcased in the Caucasus: Georgia and Armenia.
