DYSPLA_CURATESXR X LIBERTY, 22–24 JULY 2022
Mayor of London Liberty Art Festival
A free three-day festival funded by the Mayor of London that guarantees accessibility, inclusivity and a host of fantastic cultural experiences from disabled artists.
The Liberty Festival is a free annual festival run by the Mayor of London since 2003 and promises to be an accessible environment with relaxed and BSL interpreted live performances, audio described visual art and quiet areas. The festival is produced in partnership with?We Are Lewisham, London Borough of Culture 2022 and is part-funded by Arts Council England.
Curator,?Linda Rocco?has developed an innovative and ambitious festival full of works by Disabled and Neurodivergent artists who want to challenge perceptions on how culture can be performed and experienced.
The festival will feature a diverse programme of ground-breaking art and performance, interactive installations, a thought-provoking symposium, new commissions, VR/XR experiences commissioned by?DYSPLA?and free participatory workshops for all.
DYSPLA_CuratesXR x Liberty
XR/VR experiences for Mayor of London Liberty Festival
DYSPLA will curate a collection of digital arts and VR work by world-renowned Disabled and/or Neurodivergent artists for The Mayor of London’s Liberty Festival. The Liberty Festival is the Mayor’s flagship programme celebrating?D/deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent Artists.
Since 2019, Liberty has developed into a touring festival, taking?D/deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent Artists and their art?into local communities in outer boroughs. This year the?free three-day festival?will come to Lewisham, London Borough of Culture 2022.
DYSPLA is conducting research into the ‘Neurodivergent Aesthetic’ and this collection will exhibit the terms of the burgeoning aesthetic paradigm.
Artists
1. Lindsey Seers
Lindsey Seers?is a British artist living and working in London. Her installation Extramission 6 (Black Maria) was included in Nicolas Bourriaud’s Tate Triennial, ‘Altermodern’ in 2009. She was recently awarded the Derek Jarman Award with a commission of four short films for Channel 4; the Paul Hamlyn Award in 2010 and the Sharjah Art Foundation Award in 2012.
WORK:?Care(less)?(2019) is a highly original immersive 360° VR film by British artist Lindsay Seers. The work uses the hallucinatory quality of VR technology to convey an embodied experience of what it is to be in an ageing body. This OPCARE artist commission responds to new research by the University of Birmingham, the University of Brighton and the University of Lincoln, supported by the Wellcome Trust Enrichment Fund, into the experiences of older people receiving the care they pay for themselves.
2. D-Fuse
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D-Fuse?is a London-based visual arts company working across a range of media. Founded in the mid-1990s by Neurodiverse artist Mike Faulkner, its output encompasses installations, film, experimental documentary, photography, live cinema performances, VR/AR and architectural projects. From its origins in graphic/web design and VJing, D-Fuse’s work has evolved to address social and environmental themes and explore collaborative processes. Further to working with ground-breaking musicians Steve Reich, Beck, Hauschka, Scanner and Swayzak, many of D-Fuse’s projects, since 2004, features sound/music by audio director Matthias Kispert or audio-architect Martyn Ware [of Heaven 17/The Human League].
WORK:?Intersection?— w/ Observatory — Audio: Gauthier Keyaerts (2020) The nature of time is mysterious. Intersection is a VR experiment that invites you to drift around London and partake in detached observations. The experience takes you to places governed by historical resonance while simultaneously delving into the sites of temporal patterns. This psycho-geographical journey reveals zones within the city, letting you explore the fabric of London’s urban spaces.
3. Jason Wilsher-Mills
Jason Wilsher-Mills?began studying Fine Art and specialising in traditional painting techniques but has now ‘truly embraced the pixel’ and creates fully interactive sculptures, VR, 3D prints and light boxes, using augmented reality technology. He now uses this technology to expand his practice to create interactive sculptures and lightbox paintings, along with augmented reality experiences. In 2020 Jason was announced as the recipient of the Adam Reynolds Award, from SHAPE Arts. Through this, he was commissioned to create a new interactive sculpture for the Folkestone Triennial, which will be unveiled in September 2021. Jason has described this as the best thing that has happened to him as a professional artist.
WORK:?Jason & his Argonauts V the System?(2021) is a VR game all about Disability activism and access to the Disability benefits system. As you drive through the colourful world Jason has created you are invited to read the distressing accounts of disabled people's experience of the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments.
4. Natalia Skobeeva
Natalia Skobeeva?is a Neurodiverse artist, whose hybrid experimental practice explores how ideas of particular and universal are re-negotiated by humankind in crises, mediated by technology. She is a graduate of MA Fine Art, Royal College of Art, London, UK. Recent shows: Wrong Biennale/Arebyte Gallery 2020, VideoBrazil, Suoja festival, Finland 2019, Deptford X, The 6th Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition, Taiwan, 10th Shiryaevo biennale, Russia, Rencontres Internationales Festival Berlin/Paris, LUMINOCITY biennale, Canada 2018, Manifesta 11, LOOP festival Barcelona 2017, Tenderflix, Bristol Biennale, Vision in the nunnery 2016, 4th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary art, 15th WRO Media Art Biennale, Retrospective of ‘Now&After’ video art festival among others.
WORK:?True Stories of Two Mormots?(2019) — During the COVID-19 lockdown, Natalia collaborated with her 6-year-old daughter on a script for a VR project. The script pictures the experiences of a fictive species within their (un)familiar environment and explores the difficulties that Natalia faces as a neurodiverse artist, an immigrant, a female, and a mother, with the input from her daughter and her own perspective. The sound or the ancestral world was created in collaboration with a tonal (throat) singer and a shamanic drummer. The work is kindly supported using public funding by the Arts Council England Develop Your Creative Practice grant.
5. DYSPLA
DYSPLA_Touch?(2022) is a series of 12 intimate XR films exploring the ‘narrative of touch’ from the perspective of a neurodivergent (ND) woman, specifically exhibiting traits of?High-Sensitivity?and?Tactile Synesthesia. The experience?intertwines poetic narrative and self touch haptic sensation simultaneously within a VR environment. There has never been a more crucial time to investigate the importance of human touch, to challenge humans’ need for physical contact and to explore the creative as well as the therapeutic transference of oxytocin.?Using ASMR?techniques and?Volumetric Capture, the audience will explore the value of physical touch and human connection.
DYSPLA?is a Neurodivergent-led, award-winning art studio producing and developing the work of Neurodivergent storymakers, supported by the Arts Council England. Conducting research into the Neurodivergent Aesthetic while exploring the mediums of Script Development, XR (VR, 360o Film, AR, MR), Moving Image, Photography, Poetry, Theatre & Installation, DYSPLA continues to elucidate a new artistic aesthetic defined by the cognitive difference of neurodivergence.
Neurodivergent Storymakers have a strong heritage in narrative and non-linear art history and moving image/screen arts. Pablo Picasso, Agatha Christie, Steve Mcqueen, Quentin Tarantino, Antony Gormley, and Steven Spielberg, are just a few storymakers on an endless list that share Neurodivergence as their commonality and as their genius. The definition of the Neurodivergent Aesthetic will differ from creator to maker, from audience to spectator. Depending on the neurological difference each individual will experience the world differently. The Neurodivergent Aesthetic is created and viewed by those who see, think and experience the world differently from the subjective norm.
If you are based in London I hope you will consider attending the free festival in July 2022.