Re:Beuys is CCI Fabrka's first digital residency project.
APXIV Research Group
Presents Digital AIR digital residency and XR project re:Beuys
Nov. 20–30, 2021
Opening day: November 19, 19.00
CCI Fabrka \\ Moscow, Perevedenovskiy per., 18
Edel Extra \\ Germany, Nuremberg, Müllnerstraße 22
APXIV research group in collaboration with the CCI Fabrika for Creative Industries presents the Digital AIR digital residence project. The goal of the digital residence "Digital AIR" is to create new international art project which is not restricted by the pandemic measures.
The project of the virtual residence "Digital AIR" was set by the Factory Centre together with APXIV group, to whom the curatorial concept of the project belongs. "Digital AIR" residence is a reaction to the global digitalization in the field of culture and art, as well as an attempt to develop new art forms of contemporary art. In the process of creating the virtual residence, curators have digitized three exhibition halls of the CCI Fabrika and formed a new ecosystem at the junction of digital and material art, in which artists from different countries can work simultaneously.
The first project shown within the Digital AIR digital residence will be “re:Beuys’ — an exhibition and XR project by APXIV research group”. The project is dedicated to the famous German artist and one of the main theorists of postmodernism, Joseph Beuys, whose birthday this year marks 100 years. The XR-project of APXIV group explores the Joseph Beuys legend about the fall on the Crimean field and magical healing by shamanic practices.
Viewers will experience an interactive experience of creating their own experience of the myth in a digital space that connects the real and the virtual. This experience includes both interaction with installations, photographs and video materials, as well as with the artists themselves (and even with the revived Joseph Beuys) and other player-spectators in the virtual and physical space of the Factory.
The project will open simultaneously in several dimensions of digital and real: on November 19 at 19.00 at the Edel Extra gallery in Nürnberg (Germany), the finishing workshop of the CСI Fabrika in Moscow (Russia) and the metaverse without borders.
On March 16, 1944, a Luftwaffe military aircraft crashed near the village of Znamenka in the Crimea. The future world famous artist Joseph Beuys is on the plane. It is this moment that becomes the key in his myth of rebirth. Beuys himself recalled: “The last thing I remember was that it was too late to jump, too late to open the parachute ... The plane crashed into the ground, and that saved me, although I suffered bone injuries faces and skulls ... Then the tail turned over and I was completely buried in the snow. The Tatars found me a day later. I remember voices, they said "Water", felt from the tents, and the strong smell of melted fat and milk. They covered my body with fat to help it restore heat, and they wrapped me in felt to keep it warm."
On January 5, 2021, APXIV research group set off for the Crimean Peninsula on an expedition to the site of the Beuys's plane crash, with the goal of investigating the “Beuys myth”. During the expedition, APXIV group determined the exact crash point and found out that the history of Beuys's reincarnation, even as a legend, contains many dubious moments.
The study took place in several stages: 4 rituals of co-adjustment, interviewing relatives of eyewitnesses to the fall, taking land and tactile analysis of soil and water, reconstruction of the fall using an unmanned aerial vehicle, bathing in low-radioactive sources of the village of "Novaya Zhizn" (New Life).
During an expedition to Crimea, APXIV research group studied and rethought the famous Beuys myth, examining it from different angles. The results and conclusions of APXIV group's research will be presented in the re:Beuys in-game XR project.
The project is funded from the International Foundation for Cultural and Educational Organizations 2021 of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany, German Cultural Center. Goethe and other partners.
Project partners:
CCI Fabrika
EDEL EXTRA
8xr.io
Goethe Institute in Moscow