BLAST! Open Call Winners

Following a call for digital media entries open to everyone residing in Asia, Arthub is pleased to present the 8 winners for this year’s BLAST! competition.

The winning videos are on display at MoCA Pavilion (September 4-20), chi K11 art museum (September 11-14) and BMW Brand Experience Center (September 1 to October 24) on the occasion of Art in the City Festival in September 2015.

BLAST! submissions were required to be no longer than 30 seconds. A byproduct of digitization is a decrease in attention span. The Open Call hoped that the submissions would mirror this increasingly pithy, fast paced exchange of information on platforms such as Instagram, which only allows for 15 seconds of video, or standard advertisements that average approximately 30 seconds in length. Does this restriction demand brevity from the creator or lead to an accepted ambiguity? In the digital age, how long is 30 seconds?

See for yourself, watch here the 8 winning submissions and the BLAST! promotional video (released at the onset of the open call):

Video Production by: FLATMIND

The winners and their works, presented in no particular order are:
Lei Lei + Thomas Sauvin: Recycled
Mei Jian: EXCLAIM
Shanhu Fool: The Universe Meningitis
Alex Wang: Blue Pearl
Wang Huagang: The Bride Almost to Stripe the Tramp’s Clothes
Wang Xiaoxin: My Green Land-lady
Wang Zhipeng: MANDALA
Zhang Zhaoying: Shopping

Submissions were ranked by a jury composed of experts from the world of digital and contemporary art. BLAST! Jury 2015 includes:
Aaajiao XuWenkai – New media artist
Alessio Ascari – Kaleidoscope Founder and Editor-in-Chief
Roberto Gianstefani – Flatmind Co-Founder
Miltos Manetas – Painter, conceptual artist and theorist
Robin Peckham – LEAP Deputy Chief Editor
Yang Zhenzhong – Artist

Chair of the Jury: Davide Quadrio– Curator, Arthub Founder, co-curator of Art In The City Festival

By opening the call to everyone, not just limiting its reach specifically to artists and professionals from the creative world, BLAST! wishes to explore the accessibility of digital media. With unprecedented access to creative technology being taught in school and habitually utilized in our personal lives, everyone has the tools necessary to realize quality content. With smartphones and tablets, we each carry around our very own pocket production house 24/7. The Open Call will explore how this intersection between accessibility and artistic intention affects contemporary digital art in Asia.

Technology allows us to film, edit, produce and share our personal experiences in a creative manner. Anyone with the right apps can swipe, pinch, click and tap their way into a digital production. Of course, artists themselves are also employing these devices, illustrating the inevitably of art mimicking life and life mimicking art. The distinction between who is an artist – and what is art- becomes harder to delineate.

The rapidly evolving perception of media in a post-net world alters the way we engage socially, professionally and creatively. The ubiquitous dissemination of screens, the proliferation of electronic devices, combined with the unspoken commandments of interaction within digital platforms, are reshaping our communicative patterns within the virtual and physical worlds.

BLAST! challenges creatives to express themselves in a medium that is often criticized for disrupting ‘normal’ patterns of social behavior while engaging with the public. We called for submissions of new media leveraging digital technologies, including video art, interactive art, multimedia digital art, computer art, found footage, live cinema, audio-visual performance, video installation—arguably all mediums that could be emblematic of the detached digitization of our everyday lives.

The contextual breadth of the BLAST! Open Call is complemented by the MoCA Pavilion—one of three Shanghai venues where the winning submissions will be displayed. Unlike other, more secluded spaces, the pavilion benefits from its placement in a highly trafficked urban area. The pavilion is free and available to the public for 11 hours everyday. The ability to artistically express oneself is no longer limited to the minority who call themselves artists. Everyone has the ability to produce content; MoCA does not limit access to view and interact with the exhibitions in their street-side space.

Find out more about the 2015 open call here.

For an opportunity to hear Arthub’s Davide Quadrio and Carlotta Godio from Flatmind lead a panel discussion with BLAST! winners join us Saturday, 12 September 2015. The artists will introduce their winning submissions and provide insight into the digital techniques they employed. The talk will be held in chi K11 art museum, more details to come.

BLAST! is organized by Art in the City in collaboration with Arthub, Flatmind, K11, MoCA Pavilion and Phoenix Art, and supported by LIAN Cultural Development. The project is also supported by Media Partner LEAP and International Media Partner Kaleidoscope.